


Take Your Time

by MarchnoGirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Flirting, Brilliant Draco Malfoy, Curse Breaker Draco Malfoy, Department of Mysteries's Time Room, Dildos, Draco Malfoy Does Yoga, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, Drinking, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Falling In Love, Getting Together, H/D Fan Fair 2019, Hair Dyeing, Hangover, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Canonical Character Death, M/M, Magical Theory, Masturbation in Bathroom, Minor Character Death, Minor Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood/Rolf Scamander, Non-Consensual Soulbond, Non-Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Soulbond, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Harry Potter, Parseltongue, Porn Watching, Secondary Theme: Travel Fair, Sharing a Bed, Time Travel, Tree Houses, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unspeakable Hermione Granger, Voyeurism, Wandless Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 06:27:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20869676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarchnoGirl/pseuds/MarchnoGirl
Summary: Where Harry finds himself soul-bonded to a mysterious stranger and Draco, five times winner of Witch Weekly's award for 'Best Smile', happens to specialise in soul-bond Curse-Breaking. If they have to travel back in time to find the culprit, well, that's just a minor detail.Featuring bed sharing, tons of UST, a ghostly companion, and a treehouse that is off-limits, thank you very much.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Prompt #[181](https://docs.google.com/document/d/16er_sVwwFtbVQxtiFqHRWhw09kwNYhywsB-R48qtVPU/edit#).
> 
> Phew. This has certainly been a ride! Time Travel has always fascinated me and trying to come up with a decent plot for it has been fun and hard at times, but in the end I loved doing all the necessary researches.
> 
> The story is obviously non-linear and it's the first time I attempt at something like this- I apologise in advance if it's confusing! But if the story is in some way enjoyable, I owe it to a dear IRL friend, Ale, who's obsessed with Time Traveling, and my wonderful betas [Phoenix4Dragon](https://phoenix4dragon.tumblr.com/) and [milkandhoney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/milkandhoney). Many thank yous go to an amazing fandom friend and writer, who Alpha'd and cheerled me through this, [lettersbyelise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersbyelise). And of course, of course, shout out to the _amazing_ mods of Fan Fair who put up with my anxiety and last minute crisis!! 
> 
> And many thank yous to you, readers. Brace yourself for a long, weird, crazy Drarry ride!
> 
> P.s.: this was originally posted in more chapters, so I lost many comments T_T Sigh, I'm sorry for all the readers who left them, I still cherish all of them and love all of you.

** **

**November, 1995**

Harry stretched out his legs on the bench, looking intently at the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch.

The fifteen-year-old Harry and Draco were fighting, fists and insults flying everywhere.

"Wow, Draco," Harry said, not tearing his eyes off the scene, "my hair really was horrible back then!"

Draco sighed loudly next to him — his attention also focussed on the scene below.

"I told you, Harry. Your grandfather made the best hair potion in the entire Wizarding World and there you are, a bird's nest on your head." 

He grabbed a fist of popcorn and shoved it in his mouth, reaching out for his coca-cola.

"Wow. So now, you were finally able to fix my hair and I taught you to eat Muggle food. We've come a long way, haven't we?" 

Harry did look away from the pitch now to throw a shy smirk to Draco, who was looking at him, a light blush covering his cheeks.

"Well, we are fifty years old after all." He stood up, his black hair glinting in the sun — the blond roots were growing out again. "Speaking of which," he went on, stretching out, "I can't sit this long without getting a backache. Shall we go?"

Harry stood up too, grabbing his own popcorn and shoving Draco's shoulder lightly. "You want to go only because I beat the fuck out of you down there!"

"Harry, language! There are kids with us!"

Harry laughed, as Boo-boo, quiet until now, crossed his arms and stuck out his transparent tongue. 

"I'm not a kid!" Boo-boo shouted indignantly. "Okay, yes, technically, my body is the one of a kid, but that's because I'm a ghost and I can't grow up! But I've lived the last twenty years with you two, I'm not a child anymore! I _ have _ matured!" 

Draco shook his head as the three of them made their way out of Hogwarts and back to Diagon Alley, where they were staying at the Leaky Cauldron. 

Harry side-eyed Draco walking past him, breathed in the crisp autumn air, smiled to the cold sun. It was a good day.

"Boo-boo, if you're basing your maturity on how much time you’ve spent with us, then you're doomed." 

They all laughed together, lazily walking down the street, stopping to look in some shop windows and buying ice cream cones. Well, at least for Harry and Draco. Boo-boo simply broke down in a stream of annoyed tantrums on how unfair it was that ghosts couldn’t eat normal food. 

Once back to their room at the Leaky, Harry sat heavily on the bed, taking off his shoes while Draco went to shower.

Perfect time to set up everything: he arranged the rose petals on their bed, helped by Boo-boo who floated next to Harry, helping him decide which candles to light and where to place his gift for Draco — in the end, they put it exactly in the centre of the heart of petals he formed on the bed.

They were taking out the chocolates when Draco stepped out of the bathroom, his hair still wet, towel wrapped loose around his waist. Some droplets of water fell from strands of his hair and rolled down Draco's chest, raising goosebumps on their way down, hardening Draco's nipples. 

Being able to stare at Draco's body was still the hottest thing Harry could wish for.

One heated gaze later, Draco walked towards the bed, caressing the petals, smelling the air.

"Mmmh, cherries?"

Harry hummed and pointed toward Draco's gift on the bed. "Yes. Your favourite flavour, isn't it?"

"Don't ask it as if we haven't spent the last twenty years together." Draco was always quick to retort, his witty replies as prickly and pointy as his own body. 

"I know it too by now!" Boo-boo exclaimed, clapping his thin hands soundlessly, floating between the two of them.

Harry snorted and approached Draco. "Happy Anniversary, honey," he whispered, sitting on the bed, eyes still fixed on Draco's perfect skin. He knew every single mole, scar, vein, and inch of that man by heart. 

"Ugh, I'm out of here!" 

With a quick swish, Boo-boo shot through the door and exited the room, faking gagging sounds.

"Remind me, why do we keep him?" Draco laughed, the melodious tone of his voice making Harry's stomach flutter.

"He's not an animal! It's more like we adopted him, isn't it?" 

"But why every time we’re in a new hotel room he has to share ours?" 

"Draco, c'mon! He's a ghost, he doesn't need a bed or a bathroo— listen, this isn't the point, you know you love him. Just open the gift!"

"Okay, okay," Draco replied with a snort, "I do love him." His cheeks reddened deliciously, Harry's heart skipping a beat at the sight. 

"Shall I…" Draco took the box from the centre of the petals and sat down on the bed, slowly pulling the bow that wrapped it, a little smirk playing on his lips. 

They both knew what lay inside, every year it was always the same, but it had become a tradition and they still liked to pretend they were surprised. 

As soon as Draco saw the gift, he erupted in a stream of laughter, his eyes quickly filling with tears.

"You idiot," he managed to grit out, "a pink hair dye! I'm fifty years old, Harry. Fifty!" 

Harry grinned, his mind already providing hilarious images of Draco with pink hair.

"You know I fell in love with you when I saw you dying your hair for the first time. It's become a regular thing now, but black doesn't suit you. Time for a change!" 

Draco shook his head, wiping the tears gathered at the corner of his eyes with the back of his hand. He placed the hair dye on the bed again, sighing deeply.

"Fine, pink it is." 

Their eyes met and held. A warm feeling settled into Harry’s chest; they had reached a point where they could understand each other without words. 

After a few moments of silence, Draco sighed, his gaze dropped to his hands folded in his lap. "How you can still keep track of time passing, it's a mystery to me." 

He knew perfectly well how Harry did it. 

Harry's sharp inhale made Draco look up again — the pity in his eyes threatening to shatter Harry's world into thousands of pieces.

He tried to sound sure when he spoke. "I wanna be ready for when we'll be back home."

The silence that followed his words was louder than a Hippogriff shrieking. 

Draco's eyes veiled with something that looked too much like sympathy, like something Harry didn't want to see nor hear once again.

"Harry—"

"No!" He shouted, getting up from the bed, stepping back, far from Draco. 

"No." He repeated, calmer. They've had this argument too many times, and it always ended in the same way. It wasn't worth getting angry all over again.

"I don't wanna hear it! They _ will _ bring us back." 

Draco got up from the bed too, grabbed some clothes from the wardrobe, clutching them to his damp chest.

"I'd better go change."

"We've been together for twenty years and you want to go change in the bathroom?" Harry's tone was angry, regretful. Draco was doing the right thing, staying together right now would mean fighting and they'd both had enough of it.

Without another word, Draco turned and walked to the bathroom in their room. 

Suddenly tears flowed freely down his face without Harry realising it and he flicked his wand with a snap, extinguishing all the candles at once, vanishing the petals, leaving only the acrid scent of blown out candles and a few trails of smoke the only thing visible in the sudden darkness of the room.

When Draco exited the bathroom again and saw the changes in the room, he cast a low _ Lumos_, lighting the air between Harry and Draco — they were standing close enough that their breaths mingled together but not quite able to touch each other.

"I wanted to kiss you and kiss away your sadness, Harry. That's why I went to the bathroom… we—"

"I know… I know it. We can't…" Harry sniffed, remembering another time, twenty years ago, before everything changed, before everything happened. 

Draco inhaled deeply, reaching a hand to Harry's hair, stopping barely in time. Harry stepped back, tears still hot on his cheeks.

"We will go back, we will, Draco. I know it. And then I'll be free and we'll finally be able to kiss and hug and touch!" His voice sounded too desperate even to his own ears but Harry couldn't bring himself to care. 

He needed to hold on to that thought to be able to keep living like this and, thankfully, a little smile appeared on Draco's face, as usual, he understood Harry's feelings.

"Right. We will… and I can't wait for it."

**January 1, 2010**

Harry didn't know this was how he would begin the year of his thirties.

Naked, drunk, in a room he didn’t recognise. Oh, and tied up. Very much tied up, wrists and ankles locked to an unfamiliar bed.

Shit.

He sighed loudly, cringing at the stench of alcohol on his breath, barely resisting the urge to empty his stomach, taking deep breaths one after the other.

His head was throbbing, and he could feel an annoying itch throughout his entire body, probably due to being tied up for who knows how long and… doing who knows what. 

After the first dizzying seconds, Harry tried to concentrate on the dark room for any sign of the presence of another person. He couldn't hear even the faintest of noises nor recall anything about the previous night.

Swallowing thickly around his bad tasting mouth, and a few wandless charms later, Harry was sitting up on the bed, untied, lit up by a faint _ Lumos _ but still very naked and confused.

His vision was all blurry — where the heck are his glasses?! Also, what was the name of that sight spell Hermione taught him, again!? — and his skin kept feeling weirdly off, as if it wasn't _ his _ anymore, but someone else's. 

Okay, so he was still completely pissed. A shiver ran through Harry's body, reminding him he was naked in January. He could be so sick the next day, Hermione would probably have his throat.

Right! Hermione! She always gave Harry a list of things for _ the day after _ when they went partying! Bless her, he should simply find it. 

Groaning as the room suddenly started to spin around him, Harry regained control for a moment, enough to _Accio_ his glasses and the list, and within seconds a scrunched up parchment flew to his hands, while his glasses landed with an ungracious smack on his forehead.

He shoved them messily on his nose and squinted hard, trying to make the letters in front of his eyes stop dancing, giving up when it gave him nausea. He tossed the parchment on the bed to read later, while he carefully tried to stand and search for his clothes.

But when a gut-wrenching pain spread throughout his entire body, threatening to make Harry faint, he clenched a hand on his stomach, doubling over.

Why was this one of the worst hangovers Harry had ever experienced? Not only did his head feel like thousands of bees were stuck in it, his stomach was turning like a roller coaster, and he still had this weird feeling on his skin that was starting to make him nervous.

Where was he? Was he sure no one had done anything wrong to him? Panic started to coil in the pit of his stomach, worsening his sickness when the room finally stopped spinning and he started breathing regularly again. 

Panic wouldn't help him in an emergency situation like this, that was one of the few rules he learnt during his three months as an Auror that never left him. _ Constant Vigilance, _as Moody always used to say, was still the first survival trick they taught you.

_ So much for that, _ Harry thought, _ if I always find myself in these situations when I go out drinking. _

Scanning the room for his clothes, he detected them in a tangled ball on the floor near the door. 

Harry reached it on unsteady legs, sighing in relief when he felt his body warmed again, feeling a bit of lucidity coming back to him. 

From the door, he was finally able to take in where he was, and it was clear that this was a hotel room. Samples of body products and catalogues were everywhere on the nightstands and the little desk at the far end of the room, a telly hung on the wall opposite the bed, with a door just a few feet from Harry probably leading to the bathroom. 

Shaking his head, Harry reached that door, thinking to himself that he was probably in a Muggle hotel since Wizards were still reluctant to use electronic devices and happy his brain was starting to produce sensible thoughts. 

Opening the door and seeing the shower made Harry moan in anticipation of a restorative moment, immediately undressing again and stepping under the warm spray. 

The more the water slid down his body, the more sober Harry felt. Soaping himself up, he let his mind drift off to the memories of the previous night.

Slowly, they all came back, flowing into Harry's mind like gentle waves on the shore of the ocean. Luna, Rolf and Neville had organised a New Year’s Eve party at their place, an immense farmhouse with endless gardens, full of magical creatures and plants growing everywhere. 

Harry had gotten drunk almost immediately, despite Hermione's reproachful glare, and had started to flirt with a couple of blokes who were friends of Rolf's. But as far as he could remember, he didn't sleep with any of them.

There had been one — was it… Jared? Jacob? Whatever — very insistent, but Harry had been able to brush him off. Right? 

With his heart racing, Harry finished washing away the soap and rushed to dry and redress himself before running to the bed to read Hermione's list.

He needed to stay calm but he could feel panic starting to rise again and it usually didn't lead to anything good. 

Looking at the note, he already felt calmer, Hermione's neat handwriting playing a great role in that. She called it 'the font for drunk folks'. She had somehow found a particular way of writing that was easy to catch up with even in a confused state.

It's not like Harry had a problem with alcohol, if anything, he had a problem with people and often used alcohol as socialising fuel; and that usually meant he was fucking with strangers whose names got forgotten the moment after orgasm.

_ Harry, breathe. _

The first suggestion already made Harry realise that he was holding his breath and he hurried to release it at once. Right, oxygen helped clearing thoughts, Hermione had once told him.

_ Can you tell where you are? Are you alone? _

Harry sighed. Thankfully he had left the Aurors; picking up clues and staying calm really weren't his strongest skills. 

Getting up from the bed, he went to the window of the room, curtains still pulled. He clumsily opened them, shielding his face from the bright light of the sun. 

He rubbed his eyes, taking a glance outside: judging from the amount of light, it must still be morning. Looking far into the horizon, Harry could recognise Big Ben, the London Eye, and the Thames. 

London then. Thank fuck. But definitely Muggle London. Looking into the streets, Harry didn't recognise the neighborhood, though. 

As for company, unless someone had been sleeping in the cupboard, he was alone. He quickly opened the wardrobe doors — one never knew — and went on reading.

_ If you have your clothes with you, check the pockets. _

Clever Hermione. She really knew him by now, and the pockets trick had always been the best one. Once Harry had found a note that said, ‘remember who you are’, and spent two days philosophising about life and death, then Neville had confessed to him he had slipped it into Harry’s pockets as a joke since he had developed an obsession for a Muggle cartoon, _ The Lion King._

Harry rummaged clumsily in his pockets but didn’t find anything more than his wallet and keys, a bill for Ron and Hermione’s Christmas gift, his headphones and… his mobile! Damn right, he had a mobile!

Thanking all the powerful wizards in history that the mobile still had a few bars of battery power, Harry immediately swiped on Hermione’s notifications, aggressively plastered on the screen: ten missed calls.

She picked up immediately, her tone worried. “Harry? Harry, where the hell have you been?”

Hermione’s voice was exasperated, but fond, and Harry snorted a bit, feeling his head throbbing again at his own voice, his body shaking with a new wave of nausea.

“‘Mione… I have no idea. I-I feel like shit…” his vision blurred with dizziness again and his skin felt like fire was chewing at it, making even contact with his clothes almost unbearable.

Hermione sighed loudly before speaking again. "Send me your position, we'll come fetch you."

Ten minutes later, Hermione, Ron and Harry were sitting in a bar close to the hotel, ordering breakfast together. 

Harry asked for a hot tea without anything to eat, receiving raised eyebrows from his best friends. He was usually famished when hungover but this time, Harry was restlessly shifting in his chair to try and ease the itching on his skin and his stomach was still churning and turning over and over again — he really didn't feel like eating.

The more time passed, the more Harry felt sick. The noises of people chattering in the background started to fade away; Hermione and Ron, in front of him, started to blur; but everything collapsed the moment Ron touched his arm asking if he was feeling okay. 

A pain like he had never experienced before in his life, not even when Voldemort cast _ Cruciatus _ on him, coursed from his arm through his entire body and all he could remember before darkness swallowed him, was Ron letting go of him as Hermione shouted something that Harry didn’t catch.

***

The next few memories Harry had were confusing and cloudy as if wrapped up in cotton wool. 

Waves of cold and heat alternating on his skin, people with lime-green robes coming and going his way multiple times, Ron and Hermione's worried faces, the pungent smell of sterilising charms and the constant beeping of screens monitoring vitals. 

Whenever Harry tried to open his eyes and talk he'd feel his strength give way and a heavy weight settling on his eyelids, urging him to close them again and go back to sleep. 

It was late in the night when he was finally able to keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds, but he wasn't sure he was really awake when the first thing he saw was Draco Malfoy in a lime-green robe and golden halo around his head.

He blinked a few times, trying to understand if he was having a dream, or rather a nightmare, when those glittering grey eyes met his gaze and Malfoy's lips curled in a disdainful sneer.

"The princess awakens," he snarled, accompanying his words with a sweeping gesture towards Harry.

Merlin, that nasal voice and theatrical mannerisms — there was no doubt, that one was Draco Malfoy. 

"Is this," Harry started saying, feeling his throat burn with each letter and stopping to cough a few times, a steadying charm immediately washing over him. 

He cleared his throat, starting again, "Is this a dream?" feeling his hopes crumbling as more charms washed over him and hurried steps approached his bed. 

"Dream about me often, do you, Potter?" Malfoy's raised eyebrow was the last proof Harry needed — definitely awake.

Feeling his cheeks grow hot under the implications of Malfoy's question, Harry averted his eyes from him, and looked around himself in time to see Hermione and Ron bursting into the room with what looked like a medi-witch. 

St. Mungo's, then.

The medi-witch approached Harry's bed and gently smiled at him, performing some basic diagnostic spells as she started speaking.

"Hello, Mr Potter. I'm Alicia Stricket, your medi-witch. How are you feeling?"

Harry looked at her and then at his friends, who were waving at him and mouthing some greetings. And then he looked at Malfoy.

"Why is he here? He's not a healer."

With a few steps, Malfoy reached Alicia, nudging her with his elbow.

"If his tone is anything to go by, I'd say _ Mr Potter _ here feels more than fine. So, you also keeping tabs on me. Good to know." 

Now, Harry's entire face heated up, while he heard Hermione snorting behind them and Ron whispering something that sounded too much like 'busted'. 

"Your stupid face is plastered on every single newspaper, I absolutely do not—"

A violent pain in his stomach made Harry stop, shutting his eyes, and fisting the sheets to hold back a groan. 

"Mr Potter, do you remember what happened before waking up here?" Alicia's voice was sweet, caring and served as a balm for Harry's sore nerves. 

Taking deep breaths to steady himself, Harry opened his eyes again, trying to remember what had happened.

"I… was at a bar with Ron and 'Mione. I felt very sick, I thought it was a hangover… then I think I passed out?" 

Alicia nodded, her smile intact on her face. A stark contrast from Malfoy's sarcastic smirk. 

"Well, Potter—"

"Ahem, I think you should start calling him Mr Potter or Harry if he's your patient now." Hermione's voice was playful, and she directed a wink at Malfoy while saying so, eliciting a blush on his face.

When Malfoy spoke again, he stuttered, his voice so low and quick he almost looked like he was muttering to himself. "Harry, _Harry,_ that's _ so _ unprofessional on _ so _ many levels. Absolutely not. If you want my help, he's Potter." 

"Help for _ what_!" Harry snapped, the head of everyone in the room turned to him at once.

Again, Alicia was able to calm him down with her smile and sweet tone. Harry understood why she had chosen that profession. 

"This is not a hangover, Mr Potter, as you should have realised by now. When you arrived here three days ago—"

"What! Three _ what_!" 

Malfoy's sneer died on his lips, quickly replaced by a quite unsettling smile. 

"Breathe, Potter, or you'll faint again." His tone was unfairly soft now. It was so strange to hear him talk like that, that Harry forgot for a second what was happening, only able to focus on this weird version of Malfoy. 

"Good, like that. I'm sorry we didn't tell you sooner, but there really isn't a good way to say this. You've been in and out for three days, mainly because we needed time to find a potion for you."

Great, so now Malfoy was even apologising to Harry. This was definitely starting to feel like a dream.

Alicia continued for Malfoy. "Yes, Mr Potter. It appears that you've contracted a bond." 

Harry kept staring at her, waiting for the rest of the sentence. '...a bond of gigantic bacteria' maybe? '...a bond-ing on the bed virus'?

But neither Alicia nor Malfoy, nor Hermione and Ron for that matter, were saying anything more. 

"This can't be right," Harry slowly said, his mind racing through all the possibilities. 

"I— I'm not. I don't… I _ haven't_!" 

"We know." Malfoy again used that silky tone. It was unsettling for Harry to hear him speak so kindly. 

"That's why they called me in. You know what I do for a living, right?" 

"You're a soul-bond Curse-Breaker, so what…" 

Realisation hit Harry like a Bludger in the stomach. Malfoy was known throughout the entire Wizarding World for his expertise in curse-breaking of soul-bonds, even of the darkest and most ancient illegal bonds. 

Harry sighed, laying back on the pillows, finally relaxing the muscles that had tightened without him realising it. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling it even more rumpled than usual.

"Someone cast an illegal bond on me, didn't they?"

Both Alicia and Malfoy nodded, all trace of sarcasm gone. 

"Who?"

Alicia opened her mouth to speak, when her wand suddenly started wailing and flashing red.

"I've got to go, an emergency call! I'll be right back to finish checking on you, Mr Potter, and fill you in on your conditions. In the meantime, I'm sure my colleague, Draco, can answer your questions." 

With that, she turned on her heels and exited the room, her lime-green robe billowing behind her, wand still flashing. 

Harry followed her with his eyes until her form disappeared behind the door and then flicked them up to Malfoy again, catching him exchanging a look with Ron and Hermione.

In the next ten minutes, they filled him in. Apparently, at Luna, Rolf and Neville's party he had met _Jacob,_ Rolf's cousin, and they'd flirted. Ron and Hermione lost sight of Harry after he'd disappeared with Jacob, and never saw him again at the party. 

Malfoy told him that it hadn't been easy analysing his bond, because it was an ancient spell, meant to bond two people forever, both physically and mentally. 

"That's why you woke up naked," Malfoy concluded. 

Harry glared at his best friends, the traitors, when Malfoy continued. "Don't look at them like that. I needed the most precise information I could get to draw the right conclusions. It was an important detail, indeed. You were tied up and naked: Jacob would have needed to make physical contact with you for this bond to succeed. Before you panic, though, Potter, no: he didn't perform any sexual act with you, I checked. As I was saying, this is very ancient magic. It asks to not 'consummate' before bonding. As for _ after… _"

Malfoy drew out his wand and muttered a revealing spell on Harry's skin that immediately broke out in thousands of little red dots.

"It shouldn't look like this. Something went wrong when Jacob cast it, and that's the reason why he disappeared."

For the first time since he opened his eyes again, Harry wished he'd stayed unconscious. 

"What do you mean, he can’t be found?" A shiver ran through Harry's body thinking about what that could mean, hoping he was wrong.

"He means we tried to track him down but it looks like Jacob has disappeared from Earth, Harry." Hermione sat on the bed next to Harry, careful not to touch him.

"See, this spell, _ Aeternum Vinculum,_ should have left only three dots on your skin: one on your heart, one on your head and well, one on your penis. Um." Her cheeks tinged a light red before her usual professionalism took over again.

"Meaning that you'd be bonded with the other person in three ways. Feelings, mind and touch." 

"Oh no," Harry whispered, panic making cold sweat puddle on his back and neck. 

"It sucks, mate, but then we remembered you ranting hours on end about Malfoy's fame as a Curse-Breaker and, well, here he is!"

Harry's breath hitched and he narrowed his eyes at Ron while Malfoy snorted next to him, shaking his head.

He cleared his throat, luckily dropping the topic. "Here I am. In these three days we were able to create a potion that controls your symptoms."

All in all, it could be worse, Harry guessed. Malfoy had told him the potion would keep his aches at bay — aches due to the need for constant touch with the other person.

That was not the worst of the problem, though. Once Ron and Hermione left to go home, promising to visit him the next day, Malfoy had turned serious, looking solemnly at Harry.

"Potter, I don't know if you're understanding the gravity of the situation. This bond can be broken only in the presence of both of you and you may want to break it. Potions can only do so much to reduce your pain, but they can't make it disappear and… if you ever fell in love with someone, you could never marry them or bond with them or even have sex, touch, hug, _nothing._ Not only that. Since the spell went wrong, you can't do any of those things with _anyone_. People, friends, even animals, can’t touch you without you feeling excruciating pain. The potion takes away the constant pain, but can’t do anything to shield you from the touch of others. It would be an infernal life."

That night Harry cried for the first time since the War. They were angry tears, tears full of rage, heavy, burning on his skin.

He had spent all of his life at the mercy of others' decisions, and now that he was finally starting to taste freedom he found himself owned by someone else. Again.

Hermione texted him that night to check on him. She had turned her old scholar self in an attempt to give him reassurances, hypothesising Jacob as a deluded fan in love with _ the hero Harry Potter,_ sending Harry all the articles that talked wonders about Malfoy's successes, assuring him it would only be a matter of days, weeks tops.

Little she knew of what was to come.

**July, 2005**

"Have you seen Malfoy on the cover of _ Witch Weekly_? He's won the 'best smile' prize for 2005. I mean, who do they think he is, Lockhart?" 

Harry was scowling so intensely at Malfoy's picture that his eyebrows were starting to ache. 

Hermione sighed, sucking on her ice lolly. "Your obsession with Malfoy is insane."

"But does he? Does he deserve the prize?"

"Well, I guess the git has a bloody beautiful smile, mate." Ron snickered next to Hermione, glancing at Malfoy's picture.

Harry stared blankly at him. 

"Oi, don't look at me like that! I'm kidding, he's all yours."

"He's not _mine!_ I’m merely keeping in touch with him to be sure he's not up to something." 

**December, 2006**

Harry turned the page of _ The Wizarding Press,_ and choked on his cereal.

A full page picture of Malfoy, standing proud in a black fitted uniform, at the middle section of the newspaper.

The title read _ 'Former Death Eater Becomes Best Curse-Breaker of the Last Century _'.

As soon as he regained his normal breathing, Harry _ Accio_ed his mobile and took a photo of Malfoy's picture, sending it to his friends' Whatsapp group — The Mighty Lions.

"Black really doesn't suit him, don't you think? He looks even paler than a ghost, ahah!"

A single reply, Hermione's. "Oh, Harry." 

**March, 2007**

"Today I saw Malfoy in Diagon Alley. He didn't even stop to say hi. What does he think, he's better than me? Always the same spoiled brat."

Ron and Hermione rolled their eyes. Hermione took a sip of her cappuccino before replying. "Did you say hi?"

Harry blinked three times and then finally dropped his gaze to his own coffee. "No. Why should I? I hate him."

Hermione's eyes warmed up when she whispered, "Oh, Harry."

Ron snorted into his cup and shook his head, looking amused at Harry. "You and Malfoy should talk sometimes, it's really about time you sort things out." 

"Talk," Harry muttered into his own cup. "About what!" 

**November, 2008**

"We talked!" Harry shut the door behind himself entering Ron and Hermione's new place, a cosy two bedroom just outside the city with a big garden because ‘kids grow better like this’ had been Ron’s words, the nostalgia for the Burrow starting to cut in his life.

Ron's head popped out from the door of the kitchen, a puzzled expression. "What? Who?"

"Malfoy and I!" Harry entered the kitchen, landed a kiss on Hermione's cheek, and clasped Ron's shoulder.

"We talked! Remember, you suggested we should do it."

Ron blinked, staring dumbstruck at Harry until his eyebrows shot upwards, his eyes growing wider. "You mean, like I suggested more than _ a year ago_?!" 

Harry nodded, sitting at the dining table, tapping his fingers quickly on it.

Ron's voice came out slow, like the one you'd use after hearing your best buddy saying they want to lead a bunch of flobberworms on a leash down Diagon Alley. 

"And, how did it go?" 

Harry looked from Hermione to Ron and back again. "Bad! How do you think it went! We ended up Hexing each other and now my throat hurts." 

His best friends burst out laughing, Hermione barely breathing when she choked out her, "Oh, Harry." 

**January 5, 2010**

The morning after Harry’s waking, Hermione arrived early at St. Mungo's with an incredible collection of books stacked in her bag. 

They had spent an awful amount of time reading and discussing all they knew about the _ Aeternum Vinculum _bonding spell, and in the end, Harry felt a little bit better.

"Do you really think this is fixable?" Harry asked, gazing outside the window of his room.

"One hundred percent positive, Harry. I know you and Malfoy don't get along, but he's the best we could ask for in this situation. Trust him."

_ Trust him. _As if Harry didn’t know, as if Harry hadn’t kept updated on everything Malfoy had been up to in the last five years, and didn’t know he was the best man for this situation. 

The problem was another. Being Malfoy’s patient was exhausting. 

Malfoy had immediately told Harry they needed to put aside their animosities if they wanted to collaborate, and Harry had agreed as if more than a decade of rivalry could be so easily put aside. 

To be fair, most of the times had been Harry’s fault. That day Malfoy entered his room with a cold little smile, performing some diagnostic charms on him and explaining to him in more detail exactly what the potion was and how taking the potion daily would help him. 

And Harry hadn’t been able to refrain from throwing some acid joke here and there, finding Malfoy’s voice absolutely irritating and —

“By the way, Malfoy, why the heck are you wearing one of those lime-green robes?!” 

Malfoy had huffed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. “Merlin, you’re daft. I’m not a healer and I’m definitely not your healer, but right now I’m collaborating with the medi-witches and wizards on your case and lime-green robes is the uniform to wear in hospitals.”

Harry had scrunched up his face, mocking him, ready to reply, “Okay, but why—”

“I’ll stop you right there. This clearly isn’t working and I’m a professional, I don’t want to work with you in these conditions. Perhaps we should have listened to Granger’s advice. From now on, you’re calling me Mr Malfoy and I’m calling you Mr Potter.” 

Harry quickly shook his head, muttering, “No way I’m calling you Mr Malfoy. Nope.”

Malfoy had exhaled slowly, narrowing his eyes at Harry. He gritted out through clenched teeth, “Then I’m afraid you’ll call me Draco and I’ll call you Harry.”

They looked at each other in silence for what felt like a lifetime, then Harry finally whispered, “Fine, Draco.”

Malfoy nodded. “Thanks, Harry. And now, on to different topics. I’ve talked with Alicia and she told me your conditions are regular now and that you’re set to go home this afternoon.”

Harry pointed at his overstuffed trunk on the bed next to him when Malfoy went on. “Right. Once back home, for everything regarding your medical conditions, you’ll keep in touch with Alicia and her team here at St. Mungo’s; while I’ll only take care of your bonding situation. I have some ideas to start working on, so meet me in my office tomorrow morning at 9 am?”

Harry crooked his head, trying to not sound too annoyed. “And how am I supposed to know where your office is?”

Each word rolled out of Malfoy’s mouth in a visibly controlled effort to be kind. “Granger knows. See you tomorrow, Po— _ Harry_.” 

“Yeah. Bye. _ Draco_.”

Neville arrived a short time after, sporting one of his bright grins and a green shirt with soil stains. 

“Hey buddy, how are you feeling? I’m so sorry for what happened, Rolf is mortified, you know? He couldn’t come here before because he’s outside England for work, but he said he’s gonna do all he can to track Jacob down. He really didn’t seem the type and… wow, I’m sorry, I’m speaking way too much.” 

Harry snickered, awkwardly climbing off the bed and stretching, finally feeling good about standing, eating and talking with people.

“Nah, don’t worry, it’s good to see you! I’m feeling better, thank you! As for Rolf, it’s not his fault, he couldn’t have known. Can you help me gather my things while I get ready in the bathroom, please?”

Fifteen minutes later, they were walking together towards Grimmauld Place, half of Harry’s trunk filled with flasks of potions, feeling relaxed for the first time in days. He was happy to be talking about something that wasn’t his bond and listened to Neville’s stories about his plants without even interrupting him.

As soon as Harry unlocked the wards and stepped foot in Grimmauld Place, confused shouting and yelling reached his ears. 

Harry looked around to see festoons draped everywhere, with a banner that read, _ Welcome home, Harry!_, hanging just over his head and his friends scattered throughout the house, beers in hands and smiles on their faces.

“Do you like the surprise? We thought you’d need a distraction.” Neville levitated the trunk up to the bedroom and winked at Harry, walking towards the kitchen.

Harry followed, as his friends started to greet him — Luna, Seamus, Dean, a couple of colleagues from work, Ron and Hermione. 

They all gathered around the dinner table where sweets and appetisers of all sorts were splayed in front of Harry who laughed heartily and started eating and drinking with his friends. 

“Yes, Nev, I love the surprise! Thanks, guys!” He finally felt light-hearted and tranquil, after days closed in at St. Mungo’s. A reunion with his closest friends was exactly what he needed.

They stayed through the afternoon and into the night, the others filling him in on what happened at the New Year’s Eve party. Harry was happy to know that he hadn't been the only one completely pissed. Apparently, Seamus and Dean had made an exhibition of themselves climbing onto the roof of the farmhouse and declaring they'd fuck there until dawn. 

Hermione and Ron had participated in the game of “Truth or Dare” for the first time since they got married, ending up both kissing Luna.

“It had been, um, interesting,” a rosy-cheeked Hermione confessed to Harry. “And now Ron acts like a jealous git.”

Harry laughed, as Ron’s face reddened so much it matched his hair and muttered something that sounded like, “not true, I don’t care.”

It was almost midnight, around ten beers later when Dean looked at Harry smirking, all but purring, “So, Harry, did I hear correctly, you’re _ under _ Malfoy’s _ care_?” 

Harry felt his face and ears warming up at Dean’s suggestive tone, especially at his emphasis on the words ‘under’ and ‘care’. Everyone was snickering and giggling and Harry rolled his eyes, trying to be subtle.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to imply, Dean. He’s just helping me breaking this stupid bond.” He knew they wouldn’t let it go the moment Luna wiggled her eyebrows and scooted closer to Harry, careful not to touch him.

“Oooh, but he’s so cool with his glittering grey eyes—” 

“Who said they’re glittering!”

“Actually you, Harry, something like _ thousands _ of times.” 

Harry shook his head, his cheeks on fire, but Luna went on.

“And his black uniform that makes him look so pale, hmm!”

His friends were now openly laughing, cheering Luna and nodding, as if sharing some knowledge Harry was unaware of. 

“Stop it! I really mean it, he looks like a fucking ghost in it!” 

“Sure, mate.” Seamus waved his beer to him in mock greeting and Harry stuck his tongue out at him. If his friends were going to keep on with this, well, two could play at that game.

“Well, a ghost with an incredible arse, that is,” Harry said smirking, drinking in the sight of his friends’ astounded faces.

Hermione burst out laughing, shaking her head, tears already stuck in her eyelashes. “Finally admitting your one and only true love, Harry?”

Harry took a sip of his beer, snorted around it. “Maybe, what do you know.” 

They moved on to different topics, but the thought of Malfoy remained stuck in Harry’s mind. He really wasn’t that obsessed with him, right? 

Shortly after, all of his friends said goodnight to Harry, promising they'd see each other again soon.

Before leaving, Hermione wrote Malfoy's office address on the blackboard on Harry's fridge. She and Ron were the last to go home, standing in front of the fireplace, Floo powder in hands. 

"I know you’re feeling… ambiguous towards Malfoy, but be sure to listen to him, Harry. He knows what he’s doing. I'll meet you there. Try to sleep! Goodnight!" 

Ron's voice called out, slightly muffled, from the Floo a second before vanishing. "And don't forget the potion!"

***

Malfoy's office was exactly how Harry had imagined.

Hermione had told him that Malfoy had his own selected team of Curse-Breakers, only rarely consulting with the Ministry, usually for their most complicated cases. 

Across the Thames there was an entire wizarding neighbourhood that was completely new to Harry. He walked through the streets with wide eyes — it looked pretty much like a greener and healthier version of Diagon Alley, with parks everywhere, magical creatures walking the streets like it was nothing, restaurants for everyone's tastes at every corner.

Malfoy's office was on a street of beautiful green and cream apartments. Right in front of number 7, Harry snorted at the big wooden doors so similar to the ones at Malfoy Manor, but his smile faltered when his eyes fell to the golden plaque reading, _ "Draco L. Malfoy, expert on Soul-Bond Breaking." _

It sounded ominous and sad, a bit like divorce solicitors probably felt in Muggle London. Then again, Harry imagined just how often that must happen to people if someone had created a profession out of it and he felt reassured by the thought. 

If it was as usual as it appeared, there was a good possibility that he and Malfoy wouldn't have to put up with each other for long.

He knocked on the door, waiting only a few seconds before it opened itself into a large lounge. Didn’t Malfoy have a secretary? Why was no one receiving him? Huffing at Malfoy’s eccentricity, Harry entered the lounge, looking around. It was minimalist, green and cream like the exterior of the building. It was a stark contrast from Malfoy Manor's Byzantine style, but it was regal nonetheless and screamed Malfoy from every wall.

The only furniture present was a little glass coffee table, a white leather couch, and three white orchids arranged in a vase exactly at the centre of the table, while the big windows let the light seep in, making the ambience warm and welcoming.

Harry sat on the couch, blaming Malfoy only for the lack of things to do during the wait. Didn't he have any newspapers? Photos to sneak at? And where was Hermione?

As if summoned by Harry’s thoughts, Hermione walked in that moment, steps hurried and hair a mess, talking on her mobile.

"...well, now I have to go, see you later!" 

She hung up, leaning towards Harry as if to hug him, stopping short just in time before touching him. 

"Oh, I'm sorry darling, it comes so natural for me to hug you. I was on the mobile with Ron, he forgot he can't go pick up the kids from school today, can you believe him?"

She sat next to Harry, dropping her precariously open bag on the couch between them.

"This place always looks a bit impersonal to me, don't you think?"

Harry looked at her with his eyebrows raised, a snort escaping him. "First, how many times have you been here?! Second, hi Hermione, how are you? Third, of course I can believe it, you know how Ron is."

Hermione burst out laughing, conjuring a mirror and murmuring a make-up spell that quickly coloured her lips dark violet, a perfect match to her tanned skin. Another spell later and her hair was tied up in a perfect bun. Harry was always amazed at what magic could do so easily for other people’s hair — it never worked on him.

"You're right, I'm sorry, you know I'm always running late everywhere. I've been here a couple of times before, when we were searching for solutions for your problem. I… well, Malfoy will explain to you in a minute. It's not _conventional,_ but it might work!" 

Harry looked puzzled at Hermione, feeling worried all over again. Hermione _ never _ trusted non-conventional solutions. He was about to start fully panicking when the only other door in the room opened and Malfoy's pale face appeared, his scowl in place.

"Hello Hermione, Harry. Come in, please."

His manners were again kind ones like he had used the day before at the hospital, but this time he looked warmer, more comfortable. With a distracted eye, Harry saw that Malfoy was wearing his black uniform and Harry’s gaze involuntarily checked him out from head to toe, focussing on his lean but firm thighs, his slim waist and the muscles of his shoulders lightly stretching the fabric of his shirt… 

_ No _! Shaking his head, Harry took a deep breath and willed his face to go back to a normal temperature before facing Malfoy again. He tore his eyes off his retreating figure to look at the inside of Malfoy's office.

It was a bit warmer, but still minimalistic. A library full of books, where Harry recognised the names of both Muggle and Wizarding authors, a desk completely empty except for a cacti plant and two parchments, and three wooden chairs. 

Not a single photo here, either. 

The air was pleasantly warm, probably a weather charm wrapping Harry like a blanket. 

"I like your office, Draco." 

He didn't mean to sound genuine, but the mixed feelings towards Malfoy and his office and his damned uniform were starting to confuse Harry.

Hermione looked at him with an eyebrow raised, murmuring, "Harry? Draco?", and Harry waved a dismissive hand at her, and they sat facing Malfoy who was currently looking down at the parchment on his desk.

"Thank you, Harry," he distractedly answered, still looking at the parchments. "I'm glad the Saviour of us all likes my office."

Harry rolled his eyes, biting his tongue from giving a sarcastic reply, when Malfoy spoke again, lifting his head, flashing Harry with a radiant smile.

"I'm kidding." He winked and cleared his throat, as if he needed to gain time to gather his thoughts. 

“Listen, Harry, I asked Granger to be here today because we tried to come up with a solution during the days you were unconscious. But…”

Harry looked at him with a perplexed face, waiting for him to add something but he simply stared into a point slightly over Harry’s shoulder and then flicked his eyes to Hermione.

“But it seemed an impossible task with Jacob gone. However, I—”

"Wait, 'Mione," Harry said, reaching a hand to her shoulder and snatching it away as if he had touched fire.

"Nngh," he clutched the hand to his chest, trying to breathe around the pain, like Alicia had told him to do.

"Harry! Careful! Are you okay?" 

"Y-yes, I think so…" Harry's vision had blurred for a moment but was already clearing again, when a glass of water floated in front of him.

"Drink. It'll help." Harry accepted Malfoy's glass, gulping the water in one go, looking sideways at him. Where did he get the water from? Harry didn’t see any in the office. 

Malfoy nodded, a little smile playing on his lips. "Good. What was it that you wanted to say?"

Harry looked between Hermione and Malfoy, stretching his hand, finally not feeling it burn anymore. 

"You're confusing me. I wake up after three days unconscious in St. Mungo’s, you tell me someone, that idiot, _Jacob,_ cast an illegal ancient bond on me and so now I'm no longer in charge of my life again… this idiot isn't findable anywhere and, what does that mean anyway? And why are you still calling her Granger? And why did nobody think of waiting for me to wake up to… to…”

Hermione inhaled slowly, nodded and slumped back on her chair. 

"I'm sorry, Harry, you're right. We should have waited for you to wake up, but you don’t understand, it… it had been frightening! You were… you looked like you were dying!" 

She stopped, biting on her bottom lip, her gaze shifting to Malfoy, who continued. 

"I'm afraid I wasn’t too clear with you, Harry, but this kind of bond requires constant touch. Constant touch _ or you’ll die_.” Malfoy took a deep breath and went on as Harry’s world started to crumble around him.

“See, as soon as they understood you had a bond, they called me in. It wasn’t hard to discover who cast it and what kind of bond it is. In the past, it was used on betrothed people, to help them get along. Jacob probably thought that once awake again, you'd fall in love with him and forgive him for what he did. Instead, something went wrong and when the Aurors searched for his traces in your memory, he was… gone, disappeared. His name was scattered everywhere in your linked magical cores, but he Obliviated everything that happened between you two from your mind."

Harry felt his heart skip a beat, the walls of the room suddenly too close, the light too dim, the air too thick. 

He balled his hands into fists on the armrests of his chair, anger quickly flooding in his veins.

"What the fuck did he do to me!? Fuck, fuck!" He stood up, kicking the chair backwards, starting to walk in circles in Malfoy's office.

"So what! Am I doomed to live in a curse once again?! Can't you… you're the fucking best, aren't you, Malfoy? Can't you just break this damned bond?" 

Malfoy's lips were clenched in a tight line, his fingers tapping lightly on his desk, fidgeting with the cacti.

"I wish I could, Harry. Believe me, I've spent the last four days searching for solutions, for ways to break it, but… it could be dangerous. The best way to undo it, is to have both of you present. The bond is incomplete, as I told you, something went wrong when Jacob cast it. That's lucky on one side, that’s what kept you from dying. Moreover, the dot which should be on your chest hasn't appeared. That means you're not compelled to love him—"

"_That's _ what this bond does?!" 

"Yes, Harry, that's why it's illegal and no one uses it anymore." Hermione exhaled, fidgeting with her hands.

"Please, sit down, Harry, try to breathe and calm down. This is an unpleasant situation, but I may have found a solution."

Harry stopped his maddening pacing to look at her, her calm smile, her bright eyes. Malfoy was looking at her with his eyebrows wrinkled, his face a painting of doubts and questions but she sounded confident, and if there was a person Harry trusted with his life, it was Hermione Granger. 

He sat again, raking a hand through his hair, inhaling and exhaling slowly. 

"So, let me see if I understood it right this time. Jacob casts the bond, something goes off, the bond should link our minds, skin, feelings, but the only one completed is the skin one. Jacob is missing, and I'm fucked." 

"Erm," Malfoy seemed to be thinking hard about the words to use. But in the end he only exhaled a, "Yes."

For a moment there was a silence so dense in the room it could be cut with a knife, when Hermione continued her speech again. 

“I may have found a solution but I also may not have permission to talk about it."

Malfoy's already puzzled expression deepened, as Harry tried to understand the meaning of her words. Hermione was an Unspeakable, was she trying to imply that—

"But. The Ministry needs you, Harry James Potter and Draco Lucius Malfoy, for a vital mission for which your expertise is required. If you follow me, I'll explain everything to you."

"What!?" Malfoy's voice came out high-pitched and only slightly amused. And Harry could understand him, really. What the fuck was happening?

"Malfoy, don't be daft. I can't share certain things of my work, but…" 

Malfoy's eyebrows finally relaxed and a little smirk stretched his lips. "But if we're somehow involved in one of your _ missions… _" 

Harry looked between them, finally putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

Next thing he knew, they were all heading towards the Unspeakables building; Harry asking himself exactly when had the world turned upside down.

***

Harry and Malfoy were walking a couple of steps behind Hermione, both busy gaping at the inside of the Unspeakable Centre. 

Harry's mind was still racing with all the new information he was trying to sort out, and he couldn't avoid speaking to Malfoy, whispering, "I still don't understand how is it possible that Hermione got us here. Our _expertise._ Expertise in what!?”

"Salazar, Harry, you're thick!" Malfoy whispered back, try not to be heard by the Unspeakables passing by.

Harry snorted, feeling like a stupid teenager who laughs at stupid sexual innuendo, but also couldn’t help it. Malfoy’s cheeks tinged deliciously red, his eyes bulging out of his head.

"Potter, you idiot! C’mon, what are you, twelve years old? We are here because you are _ you _ and Granger is Granger, two Heroes can do whatever they want."

Harry stopped dead, narrowing his eyes at Malfoy. "Sorry, but you just walked me right into it! Ugh, I hate this. I wanna be treated normally. And by the way, if that’s true, why are _ you _here, then?" 

Malfoy rolled his eyes, annoyance clear in his voice. "First of all, I'm a renowned Curse-Breaker, won three wizards awards, improved the lives of hundreds of people with cursed bonds, won the best smile prize—"

He stopped to flash a bright grin to Harry, raising a knowing eyebrow. 

Harry regretted with a passion that he couldn't touch anyone because he would have loved to shove the git, and his damned gorgeous smile, away right now. 

Okay, so Harry was a bit confused about Malfoy and his breathtaking appearance, so opposite to his annoying personality, but he had no intention of letting him get away with it. 

He huffed, rolling his eyes, waving a hand angrily in the air. "What's your point, Draco?" 

"My point is, Harry, that I'm wonderful. Also, I have the _ immense pleasure _ of working for our Hero's well-being and that gives me some privileges." 

Harry faked gagging at Malfoy's words while a suspect heat made its way up Harry's neck. Why did Malfoy have to be this smug and what right did he have to look this beautiful doing so? 

"We're here." Hermione announced, tearing Harry away from his thoughts, and unlocking a metallic door with a wordless spell, signalling to Harry and Malfoy to follow her inside. 

He had been so busy bickering with Malfoy that he had completely lost the direction they took and had no idea where they were anymore. Actually, if he tried to recall the steps they took to get here or the corridors they passed, he’d just get a fuzzy image. Throwing a sideways glance at Malfoy, Harry thought he probably felt the same judging by his perplexed expression and the way his head kept turning from right to left.

Probably a result of the unplottability of Unspeakables laboratories. 

The room they had just entered was empty but for a tall man in a blue suit, bent over a desk — goggles and ear protections in place — who hadn't noticed them arriving.

Hermione turned to face Harry and Malfoy with a serious expression. "Okay, listen. This is the _ Time Room _and that's Geremia, my co-worker. Everything that happens here is strictly private. Our Boss wanted me to make you swear an Unbreakable Vow but I managed to convince her not to. Behave yourself and don't make me regret it!" 

Malfoy raised his hands in a sign of surrender, his eyebrows wrinkled together, as Harry whispered into his ear, “Shit, this doesn’t sound good.”

Hermione swept off, walking towards Geremia with a low, “I’ll go announce you two, wait here,” and as soon as she was out of earshot, Malfoy scowled at Harry.

“You defeated Voldemort! And you let her intimidate you?”

Harry looked at him, nodding frantically. “You’re talking like this only because you haven’t seen her after Ron told her that her pot roast sucks.” 

Malfoy laughed at this, real laughter with his head thrown back and his cheeks hollowed in two delicious dimples, and it was so new hearing him emitting delightful noises that Harry felt his heart racing, his lips curving into a smile against his will. Did he really just make Malfoy laugh? Trying to gather his thoughts again, Harry smirked. “And don’t tell me you’re not intimidated.”

“I’m not,” Malfoy coughed, a blotchy blush colouring his cheeks.

Harry looked at him unimpressed — Malfoy's red cheeks told a different story than his words.

Just when Harry's mind started going through all the possible things he could do or say to make Malfoy laugh and those dimples appear again — a silly dance? Some other scathing and bordering-on-offensive jokes? — Hermione turned her head and waved her hand for them to come over, quickly introducing her colleague Geremia Sprut.

"So, yes, Remi, this is Draco Malfoy. You already know him for his abilities as Curse-Breaker, however, I suggested him for his _ superb _ skills as a repairman. He can bring _ anything _ back to life, he has been able since he was sixteen years old, impressive, mh?"

Harry looked as Malfoy's face drained of all colour — as if Malfoy's face could be any paler — and his jaw twitched in a visible effort to play along with Hermione's words. Malfoy’s lips stretched in an emotionless smile while Geremia's lips mouthed a silent 'wow'.

She probably should have warned them about what she’d tell her colleague, and that got Harry thinking about what the hell she would say about him, cold sweat already forming at the base of his neck. He wasn't good at lying and he had a scar on his hand always there to remind him.

"And this is Harry Potter. I don't even need to present him, right, his power is indisputable."

Of everything she could have said, this was the worst choice, even if the most effective. Geremia's face lit up with a bright grin, nodding several times, muttering, "of course, of course."

Presentations finished, Geremia pointed to a small black box placed on the desk he was working at, addressing Harry and Malfoy.

"Do you know what this is?" 

Harry motioned towards the box, unsure if he could touch it. When he saw Hermione and Geremia nodding, he picked it up, examining it, turning it in his hands, trying to open it and failing.

"Err, nope."

He turned to see Malfoy shaking his head along with him. 

Geremia clapped his hands. "Great! You're not supposed to know what it is, it’s our secret project; wouldn’t it just be _ funny _if it was common knowledge?” He stopped, laughing hysterically, and flicked his eyes to Hermione. 

Harry looked at him with his eyebrows drawn together, sharing a look with Malfoy and understanding immediately neither of them found the idea funny at all. 

Hermione inhaled sharply, looking slightly terrorised by her colleague, and cleared her throat.

"Erm, right, ah-ah, just funny, thanks Remi. Anyway… Do you guys remember the Time-Turner?”

“Yep.”

“No.” 

Harry and Malfoy spoke at the same time, Malfoy looking positively confused for one marvellous moment. 

“Why should I? Why should _you?_ They were all destroyed after the War and before that they were high security items.”

Hermione blushed, chewing absently on her upper lip. 

“Right. That’s a story for another time. You’re right, Draco, after the Second War the Ministry destroyed all the Time-Turners in circulation, afraid that someone could have used them to go back in time and save Voldemort. But, the thing is, my team of Unspeakables created a new object to travel through time, and that's that little box." 

She pointed to the black box, carefully prying it from Harry's hands. 

"It works in a completely different way. When you open it, with the right spell, you decide the exact era you need to go to, and then the magical gears in it transport your body to the destination. When you set up the travel, you also decide how long you need to stay away, depending on what's your purpose."

She put the box on the desk again and Geremia looked at them seriously for the first time since they’d arrived.

“The reasons as to _ why _ we created it aren’t for you to know. We started to work on it ten years ago, as a Secret Project, but after a couple of years working on it, we understood we needed help from other people too — Aurors, Philosophers, Scientists. And now, we think we completed it. To be sure… we need to try it out and to get a final opinion from some external expert.”

Harry was listening carefully, nodding along with Geremia’s words, waiting for him to continue, when Malfoy gasped next to him, exclaiming, “Us! We are your guinea pigs!”

“Their what?”

Geremia waved a hand in front of them, smiling slyly. 

“Now, now, Mr Malfoy, I wouldn’t use such a term. If it’s true, though, that you won’t make an Unbreakable Vow, you will still need to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement.”

They signed it without ceremony, Malfoy looking so angry Harry could practically see the smoke coming out of his nostrils.

They agreed to meet up again the next day, and as soon as they were set up, Malfoy sprinted towards the exit, Hermione in tow, and Harry rushing to keep up. 

Once out of the building, as memories of the exact location of the building were abandoning Harry, Malfoy turned on his heels to glare at Hermione.

“Seriously, Granger? You want to use us as testers of something you have no idea it can or will work?!”

“Malfoy, be reasonable. We had nothing to help Harry! This could be it. If we manage to go back in time to the night of the party—"

Harry finally caught up with their argument, excitement filling him.

"We could track Jacob down and strangle him before he as much as lifts a finger at me!" 

"Harry, you know that's not how time travel works," Hermione admonished him, rolling her eyes.

"_How?_ How would he know?! Seriously, what’s up with you and time travel?!" Malfoy's eyebrows were knitted together, his eyes quickly darting from one to the other.

"Erm, right. Listen, we have to try the Time Machine out. I could easily make you revisit the day of the party and give you how long you think you’d need. It’s a great opportunity to discover what happened to Jacob and where he could be now. Think about it.” Hermione inhaled deeply and looked at both of them, rubbing her eyes.

“I have to go back to work. I hope to see both of you tomorrow morning.” 

Harry looked at her retreating form, mixed feelings confusing him. He turned his face to Malfoy, exhaling, “Now what?”

Malfoy cocked his head, his eyes bright. “Now, we travel through time.”

"Woah!" 

Harry grabbed the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning white, his stomach whirling in an unpleasant way.

"This time travelling isn't the most comfortable thing I've done, huh." 

Malfoy was standing right next to him, a hand splayed on his stomach, another clamped around his mouth. 

"Okay, so maybe we could work more on making the travel easier. Draco, if you need to throw up, just conjure a bowl first, please."

Hermione's practicality did nothing to soothe Harry's nausea. With a sideways glance, he saw Malfoy finally breathing evenly again and some pink returning to his cheeks. 

They had started with short trips, one to five minutes back in time, and to the very close past — one to twenty hours earlier. 

The Time Machine seemed to be working, even if it made Harry and Malfoy sick to their bones. 

"Okay. We'll try a longer trip now, okay? Mr Malfoy, do tell us if you notice signs of malfunctioning or anything else you deem worthy of notice. You'll stay away for three hours, in the three-days-ago timeline." 

Just before leaving, Malfoy motioned to Harry's pockets, reminding him, "Your potion."

Right, this whole time travelling affair was making Harry forget about his bond, the ache from the trips distracting him from the ache of the bond. Muttering a 'thanks', he gulped his potion and Hermione hurried to open the Time Machine.

Again, Harry felt his gut wrench when he suddenly appeared in a dark alley with Malfoy. They looked around in confusion for a few minutes, walking up the alley, under the Invisibility Cloak, until they saw the outline of St. Mungo’s.

It was still odd and difficult to walk together under the Cloak, trying to be careful and not touch each other or bump into other people or buildings, but some clumsy steps later they entered the hospital.

They checked the time, knowing their old selves were now still in Harry’s room and walked to it, learning more about what it meant to move around being invisible. Once in the room, they watched as their past-selves argued and talked about the bond. 

Harry watched as his past-self shamelessly checked Malfoy out, even while thinking he was a right arse, as usual. Just when he was starting to feel uncomfortable watching himself for so long, past-Malfoy departed and they followed him out of the hospital.

"What now? We still have one hour and a half." Malfoy asked, looking around himself, being careful not to be seen by his past-self.

"Why not a coffee together? You know, I was thinking some things about this time travelling, I'd like to discuss them." 

Malfoy looked at him with a single eyebrow raised but nodded, adjusting his coat and draping the hood over his head.

Harry laughed, looking at Malfoy in a navy blue hood scowling at people passing by. There was something about this, the two of them together, sharing little moments of their daily life that warmed Harry's heart.

He felt his cheeks grow hot as he thought that the git was an absolute bastard, how could he possibly look so hot in a stupid hood? 

"What's so funny?" Asked Malfoy, his annoyingly gorgeous scowl deepening.

And really, Harry's fifteen-year-old self would kick his arse right now for having such thoughts about his former school rival, but he couldn't help it. He spent years following Malfoy's every move, convinced he had to keep an eye on him, but Harry was starting to doubt his intentions. 

He cleared his throat, hoping Malfoy would blame the cold for Harry's surely red cheeks. 

"Oh nothing, you look like one of those pompous old wizards in the Hogwarts portraits and—"

"Hullo!" An echoing voice startled them and they stopped short mere inches from the door of an old Muggle coffee shop where no one they knew used to go. 

They spun on their heels, hands flying to their wands secured on their thighs, but all they could see was a floating little ghost, who couldn’t more than nine or ten years old.

He was wearing short dungarees, big square glasses and a sad frown. 

Malfoy visibly paled, looking almost as transparent as the ghost.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?! You could be seen, are you crazy?" 

The ghost wrinkled his eyebrows and shrugged, zigzagging through the people on the street, going back to Harry and Malfoy.

"They can't see me. It's always been like this! But you, you can see me! I've had glimpses of you two lately, but you disappeared so quickly that I never had the chance to speak to you! I'm so excited someone can finally see me!" 

Harry crooked his head, smiling at the little boy. His face still looked sad, but his eyes looked brighter; well, as much as a transparent ghost’s eyes could possibly brighten.

"Oh, that’s great! I’m Harry and this boring idiot is Draco. Want to follow us into the coffee shop? We were about to enter." 

Malfoy snapped his head to Harry, shaking it, mouthing, "No way! He's weird!" But he just shook him off, going on. "What do we call you?"

The boy ghost seemed to be thinking for a long time before he nodded to himself and said, "Well, okay. You can call me Boo-boo."

Harry snorted, while Malfoy's eyes widened as he whispered, "See, _ weird_!" 

They entered and chose a little table at the end of the shop, Malfoy casting sideways glares at Boo-boo.

"So tell me, _ Boo-boo_," Malfoy gritted out, "how long have you been around?"

"Oh," Boo-boo sighed, tapping a finger on his temple. "I don't know, actually! Since forever?" 

Harry and Malfoy shared a perplexed gaze — this was starting to sound weird indeed. A waitress approached their table and Harry ordered a cappuccino and looked over to Malfoy, who finally shrugged off his hood and looked like a lost puppy.

It was adorable to see him so openly vulnerable in front of a Muggle menu and Harry stumbled on his words, ordering for Malfoy, hot tea with two teaspoons of cold milk and one of sugar.

When the waitress walked away, Harry felt Malfoy's eyes burn a hole in his face and then Boo-boo asked the worst possible thing.

"Are you two married?"

Harry's jaw slacked open as Malfoy burst out laughing, actual tears wetting his long blond eyelashes. 

"Absolutely not, I'd prefer riding a dragon bareback than marrying Harry Potter." 

Boo-boo hummed, narrowing his eyes at Harry. "But your order for him is so precise."

That was true. Harry had been surprised to hear that meticulous order leave his mouth, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. But the truth was — it _ felt _ like the most normal thing in the world.

It felt exactly like drinking a glass of water, refreshing and easy. Harry had observed Malfoy for so long, first at Hogwarts, then through the newspapers, that he _ knew _ him on a completely different level without even realising it.

Malfoy crossed Harry's gaze and smirked. "It is, indeed," he said, leaning on the table, his chin resting on his hands. Harry could practically see a tail popping out of Malfoy's bum and wagging with smugness. 

"Wasn't he weird just a few minutes ago?" Harry murmured, crossing his arms on the table and pointing to Boo-boo with his head.

"Mh, it's also absolutely perfect. I do take my hot tea like that." Malfoy ignored him, wiggling his eyebrows, a shit-eating grin breaking free on his face.

"Well, that's simply… luck. Now, we have more important matters to discuss." 

Harry inhaled and thanked Merlin that the waitress arrived with their order, giving him time to compose himself.

Malfoy stirred his hot tea and nodded to Harry to go on, thankfully dropping the topic.

"I'm sorry, Boo-boo, if this will be annoying," Harry said, throwing a little smile to the ghost who seemed completely unbothered by their conversation, too busy staring and seemingly studying them.

"Ahem, well. If the next trip will be the one to the night of the party, we need to be prepared. What about my potion? We'll be there twelve hours, I’ll need at least two flasks, right? And what about our appearances? We'll need to disguise or we will be too recognisable and it would be risky. Also, I was thinking that it would be wise to bring along my Invisibility Cloak." 

"A trip?!" Boo-boo exclaimed, his resounding voice excited. "Can I come?"

Malfoy's face scrunched up in disgust and Harry felt the sudden urge to kick his shins under the table when he remembered that that would have hurt him more than Malfoy.

"This is serious business, Boo-boo, kids aren't allowed." 

Harry huffed loudly, looking worriedly at Boo-boo's face morphing into a sad mask again, and glaring at Malfoy. "Nonsense. Of course you can come, people can't see you, right? Maybe he can be helpful, what do you know!" 

Boo-boo did a triple flip in the air, his face finally melting into a goo of happiness. He couldn't stop zipping through the coffee shop, clapping his opalescent hands. 

Malfoy looked daggers at Harry, his stormy grey eyes glittering dangerously. 

"This ghost is weird, Harry, I don't understand who he is, why is he here, why no one but us can see him. I don't trust him and we need to be able to concentrate."

Harry could understand his arguments, he really could, but the temptation to row with Malfoy was too strong. 

"C'mon, Draco, it could be fun. You're always so uptight. Loosen yourself a bit." Harry winked and something tickled his stomach, so different from what the bond does to him, more similar to… to tiny butterflies fluttering in it. Oh Circe, was he getting the butterflies for Malfoy?! 

Malfoy's cheeks pinked lightly as he hurried to sip from his cup, the steam blurring his face. 

In a second, Boo-boo was once again next to them, his lips finally stretched in a big grin. "So you're travelling through time! They finally fixed it!"

Malfoy turned his head to him abruptly. "Fixed _what?_ What do you know about this?" 

At that moment, Harry's wand started vibrating against his thigh, and judging by Malfoy's startled move, his wand was too. 

"We need to go or we'll disappear in the middle of Muggles!" 

They hurried to pay their order and ran to an empty alley, their breathing still ragged when the unpleasant wrench brought them back to their real timeline. 

"Oh, Harry, Draco! How did it go?" 

Hermione was smiling at them, the folder with all the records of their trips in her hand, quill ready.

They exchanged a look, still breathing heavily. 

Then Malfoy straightened up. 

"It was okay, we saw our past-selves in St. Mungo's, no one saw us and we thought of some ways to disguise for our longer trip. But there's something off." He squared his shoulders, looking directly into Hermione's eyes.

"Is this the first time you’ve used this Time Machine?" 

Hermione and Geremia's hands quickly darted up, in an 'obviously' gesture, reminding Harry of Snape.

"Of course, we told you that! We would have never used it without being sure it could work." 

"Mmmh. We met someone. A ghost of a kid, he didn’t tell us his name, only to call him Boo-boo, and he said something about _ this _ needed to be fixed?" He pointed to the black box, with a certain defiance.

Before Hermione could reply, Geremia's dry answer interrupted them. "You don't know what you're talking about, we're professionals. That ghost must have been a poltergeist and he certainly played a little joke on you two. I wouldn’t expect for someone like you to fall for it." 

Harry's hands balled into fists before he could even process entirely Geremia's words and Malfoy must have noticed because he shot a glance at Harry and cleared his throat. 

"That's funny, because we're professionals too, you called us in for our expertise, so you should be listening to us right now." 

Hermione dropped her folder and quill on the desk, looking at them.

"Are you sure, one hundred percent sure, and you can tell me with certainty, that you saw an actual ghost and not a poltergeist?" 

Harry felt his stomach sink minutely at Hermione's words. They couldn't, of course.

Geremia's sneer widened and he all but gloated. "Then we'll do one more, longer this time. Hermione suggested for you to go back further in time, to New Year’s Eve. If you can confirm your story, we'll dig deeper into it."

Harry looked as Malfoy's lips tightened in a thin line, his eyes veiling darkly. 

"Fine. Harry, take at least four flasks of potion with you. And yes to what you said earlier, I heard you, bring your Cloak." And added, muttering in that way he only used talking to himself, “and I still don’t know, how is it possible you even own one of those!”

He then approached Harry, whispering to his ear, "We’re gonna uncover two truths today, are you with me?" 

Harry shivered — lately everyone had been so scared to hurt him that no one had come closer to him than two feet away and unexpectedly feeling someone else's body heat and breathing ghost over his ear made him whimper. Even more so, when that someone was an incredibly good-smelling, attractive blond ex-rival turned righteous all of a sudden.

"Wasn't Boo-boo w-weird?" Harry stuttered out, trying to keep his tone as low as Malfoy's, attempting to make his brain work.

"C'mon, don't tell me you like Geremia's attitude! I know for sure you don’t like presumptuous bullies." He winked, the presumptuous idiot, turning to face Hermione and Geremia, his tone as cold as stone. 

“Can we go retrieve the potions and Cloak?”

Hermione smiled. “Uh, well, I thought you might need them, so I asked Alicia to provide some more flasks and I brought your Cloak, Harry. I hope it’s not a problem.” A faint blush covering her cheeks; she was always so modest but she was the best when it came to details of planning, especially when it involved Harry’s safety.

Harry grasped the items from Hermione’s outstretched hands and snorted. “It’s not a problem, thanks ‘Mione!”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow to her but a knowing smirk was playing on his lips. “Let’s go, then,” he drawled out.

Hermione mouthed ‘good luck’ before setting the Time Machine to New Year’s Eve. Harry smiled at her. He knew he could trust her.

"Ow, is this how you flirt with people? I'm not surprised you're still single." 

"Shut up! I did pull someone in the end!"

"And look where it brought you…"

It was getting hot under the Invisibility Cloak. Harry and Malfoy had come back to the night of the party at Luna, Rolf and Neville’s and between having to be careful not to touch or be touched, and whisper and walk amongst hoards of tipsy people, Harry was feeling irritable and sweaty.

Malfoy's breath kept blowing on his ear and neck, his usually faint citrus scent now lingering heavily all around Harry, making his ability to concentrate shatter. He was wearing his black fitted uniform, as if it was of any use in a situation like this, and Harry found himself tripping over his own feet more than once.

He turned his head toward Malfoy to glare at him but almost immediately snorted at his impressed face.

Malfoy was looking all around as if it was the first time he attended a party in all his life.

"I mean, I do party a lot, but this is so _ mundane _, Harry. What's that golden liquid you're all drinking? And those...trousers? The… what are they? I mean Luna, Rolf, Neville… why do they live together? And why is this house so full of soil and plants anyway?"

Maylfoy had started complaining about every single detail from the moment they first appeared in that neighbourhood, and Harry had given up on arguing almost immediately.

Malfoy's scrutiny was too funny and he didn't mind explaining to him about beer, polyamorous relationships and jeans while watching Malfoy's face scrunch up in horror. "This is all so Muggle…" Malfoy whispered, having the good grace to blush and add, "Yeah, sorry, I'm sorry, okay?"

Moreover, it helped distract Harry from the embarrassment of watching himself get drunk and flirt, with Malfoy at his side doing a commentary like the ones Lee used to do at Hogwarts. 

"Potter’s chasing the Snitch like a horny Hippogriff who forgot how to fly. A Quaffle approaches but Jacob kicks it low into the opponent's area. Game’s back on for Harry Potter, he may do it this time, Jacob's smiling and Potter… Potter fails! He drops the sex bomb, stumbles over his drunken words, and faints on the counter—"

"Are you done?"

Malfoy looked at Harry and laughed, his cheeks again doing that beautiful thing where dimples appear on both sides of Malfoy's face.

With his heart in his throat, Harry whispered, "You've got dimples. I never noticed them. Cute."

Malfoy stopped laughing, bringing a hand to his face, as if trying to cover them. 

"Cute? Cute! Malfoys aren't cute…" 

They looked at each other and snorted together, Malfoy's cheeks quickly flushing magenta. 

Over at the bar, a man who'd had one too many dropped to the floor, snapping Harry out of the moment.

"Wait! Where's Boo-boo?" 

Malfoy looked around and shrugged. "He said he was gonna do a tour of the house. Looked pretty excited… we'll find him."

Right at that moment, the past Harry and Jacob started walking towards the fireplace and before they could Floo, Harry and Malfoy heard them pronounce the destination: Hotel ‘The Compass’, room 17.

"We need to go there as fast as we can! Boo-boo, damn, where is he?" 

Boo-boo appeared in front of them, a big grin plastered all over his tiny face. "I'm here! Wow, this party is so cool! Did you know that—"

"Not now!" Harry motioned for him to follow them out of the house, to the street.

"We'll grab a taxi," Harry said, taking off the Invisibility Cloak and quickly folding it into his pockets.

"A what?!" Malfoy's eyes widened briefly before he gasped and stepped back when Harry pointed his wand at him.

"What the fuck are you doing, Potter?!"

"Sssh! Stay still, Draco! We're too recognisable, we should glamour! We said it and then forgot, for Morgana's sake!" 

He cast a wordless glamouring spell, first on Malfoy, and then on himself. 

"Well?" He asked, looking at Boo-boo.

"I guess it worked, but I don't like you with blue hair, Draco."

"Blue hair?! Potter, what the hell did you do?!"

Harry laughed at the blue-haired Draco in front of him, still very much him, but at least disguised enough to not be recognised. 

"Listen, there's no time now. Look, a taxi." Harry waved a hand to the driver, shouting, "Over here, please!"

When the yellow car stopped by them, Malfoy let out a scandalised screech, declaring he'd "never get in a thing so precarious", but following Harry nonetheless. 

Boo-boo simply flew into the car with them, poking around every seat and little pocket or compartment. 

Once at Hotel ‘The Compass’, they hurried to the reception desk, while Malfoy's face looked almost as green as his Slytherin scarf, and was muttering something that sounded like, "I'll never trust Potter again in my life." 

Harry rolled his eyes, reminding him his name was _ Harry_, and asking the receptionist for a room for two.

At Malfoy's raised eyebrow he shrugged, hoping he wouldn't blush again for the hundredth time that night. 

"It's just so we have an excuse to go up to the rooms."

Malfoy's eyebrows wrinkled at this, his lips stretching in a "huh" expression. "Idiot, we have an Invisibility Cloak."

And yes, now Harry was sure his face was on fire, and not only that — his neck, ears, shoulders, probably his entire body was blushing right now. He opened his mouth and closed it again, not knowing what to say.

"Why are you so red in the face? Are you sick?" Boo-boo asked, trying to put his little transparent hand on Harry's forehead and frowning when it passed through. 

"Oh yes, he's sick, sickly in love with the gorgeous Draco Malfoy. Wanted a piece of me for yourself, didn't you, _ Harry_?" 

"Malfoy, for Merlin's sake! Boo-boo! I… let's go!!!" 

They hid under the Invisibility Cloak, as Malfoy's face turned into the living representation of smugness, and hurried to the stairs, stopping in front of the door of room 17.

"Erm, how do we get in, now?" Harry asked, studying the door. "Jacob would sense every spell we'd use to get around the door and enter…"

Malfoy looked lost in thought when he finally jumped and clasped his hands together. "We don't! Ah! We wait for when Jacob will exit. In the meantime, Boo-boo will tell us exactly everything that's happening inside…" 

He looked at Boo-boo, a fake smile in place. "Please?"

Harry smiled too, as Boo-boo nodded and did a little gesture with his hand like a soldier's salute. 

"Yes, sir! I'm part of the mission, this is exciting!"

Malfoy smiled, a real smile, not one of those he pawned off to the journalists. A smile that made his cheeks dimple again, and Harry's heart skip a beat at the sight.

"Okay, then listen carefully. You must tell us exactly what Jacob does, okay? Don't think about the words, we can hear them with a simple spell." 

Boo-boo nodded and zagged through the door, as Malfoy cast a _ Volumens _ spell on it.

Harry turned to face him, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "Oh, we shouldn't trust Boo-boo, he's weird!" 

Malfoy rolled his eyes and sighed, still looking at the door.

"As much as I'd _ love _ to see you naked, Harry, Boo-boo seems the quickest and easiest option. Now shut up, or we'll miss what Jacob said."

Harry hummed in approval, not fully convinced of Malfoy's words, but tuning in with the situation at hand. 

Between what they heard of Jacob's words and Boo-boo descriptions, they narrowed down what happened. Jacob pronounced the last part of the ritual, the one that would have sealed the bond, the wrong way and crashed to the floor.

"It probably rebounded in some way. It could have also damaged Jacob's magical core for all we know, this bond requires a high level of accuracy to cast. Boo-boo, please check his movements."

One hour, and an anxiety crisis later — "honestly, Draco, didn't you think Boo-boo could be impressed by the ritual?" "Just shut up, Harry, you didn't think of that either!" — Jacob exited the room limping, clutching at his stomach and casting worried glances around the corridor. 

For one moment, Harry felt like he was looking right at him and Malfoy, but they were under the Invisibility Cloak and Jacob's eyes quickly moved away. 

With what seemed to be a great effort, Jacob walked towards the lift, taking out a mobile. Boo-boo told Harry and Malfoy that all he did was text someone: _ come pick me up, I'm hurt. _

They descended the stairs as quickly as possible, and when Harry and Malfoy arrived at the reception area it was to see Jacob sitting on a sofa, a hand still clenched on his stomach, white as a sheet. 

"I'll never understand the fascination with those… phobile? Cellone? Ugh," Malfoy whispered to Harry, his face a perplexed mask.

Harry snorted, turning to smile at him. "I'll definitely convert you to Muggle culture. That's a _ mobile _ and it's really useful, especially if you often hang out with Muggles or in Muggle areas." 

Malfoy made an incredulous face when Boo-boo called their attention, exclaiming, "Look, he's going away with someone!"

They chased after them, out of the hotel, and when Jacob and his friend climbed in a car, Harry saw Malfoy's eyes widen and his face lose several shades of colour. 

He shook his head and _ Engorgio_ed two brooms he took out of his pockets, casting strong Disillusionment Charms on them both.

"You still fly?"

Malfoy looked down at Harry's stretched arm with the broom held out for him, biting on his bottom lip. As much as it was an enticing image, they were in a hurry.

"So?"

Malfoy jolted and grasped the broom, flicking his eyes up.

"Of course, Potter! Let's go!" He mounted the broom, looking as graceful as he did in school, a challenge in his eyes.

Harry mounted also and as they flew into the sky looked to see Boo-boo happily floating behind them, with a gleeful smile. 

“A hunt! How exciting!” 

Harry had a second to spare a thought about Boo-boo’s previous life: how sad it must have been if he found everything so exciting? But he had to stop the thoughts when he saw Malfoy speed towards the car, and he hurried to follow it also, being careful not to smack against birds or lamp posts or traffic lights. 

The January air was particularly cold, and as soon as Harry's fingers started feeling numb and condensation formed on his glasses, he cast a weather charm, that wrapped around him, warming his body and unfogging his lenses. He turned to look smugly at Malfoy, who looked back at Harry with raised eyebrows and perfectly cool skin, unbothered by the cold air.

He had already thought of that — the only sign of winter visible on his skin, his pinkened cheeks and nose. He looked younger and Harry’s memory went back to a time when Quidditch and the chase of the Snitch against a certain glowing blond bloke was one of Harry’s more enjoyable worries.

The memories were abruptly interrupted when the car came to a stop next to an isolated cottage in the middle of what one could only call a forest. By the overgrown look of it, it was probably long abandoned or in disuse.

They landed on the frozen grass, stretching out after the flight. Malfoy’s black uniform clung to him as he stretched and Harry couldn’t stop his eyes from checking him out head to toe — Merlin, but he was fit. 

Feeling his stomach flutter, Harry forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand, tearing his eyes off Malfoy, but not before crossing his grey eyes, fixed on Harry with an intensity that surprised him. It almost looked like Malfoy was checking Harry out too. 

Glancing up at the sky he saw the first light of dawn — they’ve already been back in time for eight hours. 

“C’mon, Harry, take out the Cloak.” Malfoy nodded his head towards the entrance of the cottage, where Jacob and the other man were entering with a concerted effort. 

Once under the Cloak, they followed the two men inside. They decided Boo-boo, still looking frantic and excited, should wait for them outside and watch if anyone else arrives — Boo-boo had already seen and heard enough.

It wasn’t long before Harry and Malfoy found the pair in a dusty room on the second floor, Jacob explaining what happened to his friend — a certain Louis, who helped him with the plan. Harry wasn't sure as to why. 

He understood it in the following two hours, overhearing the pair discuss what happened — Jacob's magical core had been almost destroyed by the spell when it went wrong, but Louis helped him get better. Apparently, Louis and Jacob had been together for the last three years and they were both in love with the ‘great Harry Potter’ and had planned to use this bond to lure him into their relationship.

Harry felt a shiver run from his neck to the very tip of his toes at the idea that a person could even think of abducting someone else into a relationship. Malfoy grunted and whispered to Harry to follow him out to meet Boo-boo again.

Once out, they shrugged the Cloak off, Malfoy sighing in relief. 

"Merlin, it's too hot under that thing." 

Harry nodded distractedly, still shook by what they had learned. Malfoy crooked his head and hummed, reclaiming his attention.

"Listen, Harry, I know this sucks. But you heard them, they decided to stay here until Jacob gets better. I'm sure they're still here, damage like this takes months to fix."

Harry nodded again, biting his lips. He wasn’t sure he could hold back the tears if he tried to talk. 

Shifting his head to Boo-boo he smiled, trying to distract himself.

"Um, Boo-boo, how do you keep track of time? I think I'm a bit lost… how long has it been since we arrived back here? Mobiles and clocks don't work when you travel through time…"

Boo-boo frowned slightly, but his lips quickly stretched into a big smile.

"I don't! I have no idea either!" 

Malfoy huffed in annoyance, starting to move away, Boo-boo following him with a little flip in the air. 

Harry joined them walking further into the forest, until Malfoy stopped and cast several cushioning and warming charms at a tree. He sat, leaning his head back on the trunk and exposing his long throat, lit up by the orange light of dawn.

Harry's eyes were focussed on Malfoy's Adam's apple, so tantalisingly jutted out, when Boo-boo looked from Harry to Malfoy and then asked, "Why are you staring at him?" 

Harry felt his cheeks growing hot, and spluttered, "Wha— I'm no— he's—"

"You are, you moron. Just sit down. I reckon we still have two or three hours to spend here; we arrived around 9 pm and now it's dawn, more or less... Relax and get comfortable. Some sleep won't hurt you, either." 

Harry narrowed his eyes at Malfoy, who looked up at him with a smirk. What the hell was happening, were they… flirting? 

Harry sat down, leaning back against the trunk next to Malfoy, trying to ignore the mad speed of his own heartbeat. He was sure Malfoy could hear it for how loud it was pounding. 

"I don't think I can sleep now. What will we do? Once back home, I mean." 

Boo-boo's lips quirked down in a sad expression, his hollow eyes fixed on them. 

"Will you… will you come back here?" 

Harry felt his heart sink to his stomach at the way Boo-boo's voice broke asking that, feeling his mouth go dry as he attempted to answer. 

Malfoy stiffened next to him and coughed lightly, his fingers drawing circles on the soil under them. 

"I… don't think so, Boo-boo. Our mission is solved. We know where Jacob is and… but I'm sure you'll find other friends!" 

Harry looked at Draco perplexed — other friends? And who, exactly? 

Apparently, Boo-boo had those same thoughts. His voice was incredibly full of resentment for a ten-year-old kid. 

"Friends! I've been around here for forever, and you two are the first ones who can see me! Please, don't go! We'll have fun!" 

Harry itched to take him into his arms and wrap him in a tight hug, his chest feeling tight all of a sudden. His eyes watered and his voice broke when he spoke. 

"Boo-boo, believe me… we'd stay if we could, b-but—"

"Shut up!" Boo-boo shouted and zigzagged far from them, flying away, helped by the cold wind of that January morning, quickly disappearing from their sight. 

Malfoy turned his head to Harry, his eyebrows drawn close. 

"Harry, it was sad, but… are you crying?" 

Harry wiped the few tears stuck in his lashes, feeling a weight sitting on his chest. He knew all too well what being abandoned felt like. 

"Mind your business, Malfoy. Let's just be done with this." 

Malfoy gave him a curious look and then turned his head again, looking to the horizon, miles of green forest before their eyes.

"I love the smell of the forest at dawn. It reminds me of the treehouse I had when I was a little kid." 

Harry's eyes widened — was Malfoy sharing personal information about his private life, his childhood? He held his breath and then released it, falling back into known dynamics. 

"_Of course _ you had a treehouse at the Manor."

"Who said anything about the Manor?" Malfoy smirked and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, his chest expanding and stretching his black uniform, drawing Harry's eyes.

He shook his head and closed his eyes, too, trying to think about positive things. They'd be back home soon, and he'd have his bond removed, and a free life again. Finally free of falling in love with anyone… if only he was able to love. He'd been single for so long, he was starting to fear he couldn't love at all. 

All the newspapers talked about him as the most eligible bachelor of the Wizarding World, people from everywhere tried to have a piece of him, and here he was, fucking with strangers in bathroom stalls, and getting drunk bonded to one of them.

When he opened his eyes again, Harry was shivering, cold air seeping through him. He couldn’t have slept for more than a couple of hours but the warming charms he and Malfoy had cast had probably weakened during their sleep. 

Malfoy was next to him, still fast asleep, his neck crooked to the side. Harry hesitated a fraction of a second and then whispered a cushioning spell to make him more comfortable, and reinforced the warming spell. 

There's always something weird in watching someone sleeping, as if intruding in a private moment. Surely Malfoy looked like the kind of person who didn't sleep in public, and here he was, his hair rumpled, cheeks and nose red, lips slightly parted emitting gentle puffs of air.

That was why he never slept in the same bed with his one-nighters. It was too intimate to see someone like this and Malfoy looked undeniably gorgeous, even with his hair half blue and half blond, the glamour slowly fading away.

Harry felt his fingers itching to reach out and stroke his hair, his cheeks, brushing them on his skin, discovering if it felt as silky as it looked. 

As he stared at Malfoy’s sleeping form, Harry felt his cock straining against the zipper of his trousers, and he hoped it was only morning wood and nothing more. He couldn't be attracted to Draco Malfoy of all people, after all his solitaire years.

Fishing out a crumpled bill and a pen from his pockets, Harry wrote a note for Malfoy, _ went to check if they're still in the cottage,_ and stood up, stretching and looking up at the sky.

The sun was covered by clouds, but he could see it high in the sky, and judging by the yellowish light it emitted, he guessed it was somewhere around noon. They should already be back by now, right?

But he shrugged and grabbed his Invisibility Cloak — he probably calculated the hours wrong. 

By the time he got back to their tree, Malfoy was awake and doing… yoga on the grass. 

Harry stopped in his tracks, mesmerised by the view of Malfoy's arse in the air, his long legs stretched out and his head between his arms on the ground. A yelp escaped his lips when his cock filled in for the second time that morning. 

"I know you're there, Harry, you never fooled me with that Cloak. So?" 

Harry hurried to uncover himself, hoping he wasn't blushing too much, and trying to discreetly hide his bulge. 

"S-so, they're still there and… and… are you doing _yoga,_ Draco?!" 

Malfoy turned his face to look up at him, and was it only Harry's imagination, or was his arse slightly undulating now? 

"Your observational skills will never cease to amaze me, Harry."

Harry rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out at him, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"I'm just surprised, that's all." 

Malfoy finally came back into a normal standing position, and smiled at Harry.

"I was doing sun salutations. Which reminds me… I've got a funny feeling. I really think we've been here for more than twelve hours."

He bit down on his bottom lip, fidgeting with his hands. Even without knowing too much about this apparently new Malfoy, Harry knew that wasn't a good sign.

"I-I got that feeling too. Do you think… I mean—"

"I'm sure we will be back soon. But I don't think staying here is a sensible idea… and I'm starting to feel cold even with the warming charms." 

"Yeah, I need to go somewhere warm too. Maybe… well, you know, I booked that room at the hotel. Maybe we could go back there?" 

Malfoy nodded — mounting their brooms, they cast Disillusionment charms and made their way back, the tiredness of those hours starting to weigh on Harry's shoulder. 

Once back at Hotel ‘The Compass’, they didn't spare a second before locking themselves in the room Harry booked, sighing in relief at the warm air and the comfort of a soft bed and pillow. 

They settled in the room and after a few minutes in silence, Malfoy cleared his throat, tentatively saying, "Something is definitely off. It's already afternoon, bordering on evening if you ask me. I'm not going crazy, right? You can see the day coming to an end too, right?"

He was munching on his chocolate bars, sat on the bed, a blanket pulled up to his neck. Harry was eating a strawberry muffin, sitting next to him. 

"Yeah. I mean you're definitely crazy, but you're right on this particular occasion."

Malfoy snorted, choking on the sip of hot tea he was drinking. 

"Idiot. By the way, this tea is perfect again. It's incredible you remembered. And this thing, the order in bedroom? Was a cool idea."

Harry burst out laughing, letting go of his muffin and covering his eyes with his hands. 

"Draco, what the fuck! That sounds like the title of a porn movie! It's called ‘room service’, for Godric's sake, and well yeah, it's pretty common for Muggles."

He took a deep breath, lowering his eyes to his own cup. 

"Two teaspoons of cold milk and one of sugar. I remember it because I always thought it was kinda posh. Who takes his tea with a precise amount of milk and sugar, always the same?" 

"Mmmh, apparently, me." Malfoy seemed to be lost in thought when he added, "and what's a porn movie?" 

Harry's eyes snapped to him, his eyebrows flying to his hairline. 

"What! Draco! It's the Muggle equivalent of porn Pensieves. I can't believe you still don't know a thing about Muggle culture." 

"Do you call porn _ culture_?" Malfoy smirked, a knowing look in his eyes. "Kidding."

They smiled at each other, and Harry felt the room getting warmer all of a sudden. He would have never imagined talking like this with Draco Malfoy, his school rival, former Death Eater, and possibly the most gorgeous man he'd ever met.

Slumping back on the pillows, Harry exhaled slowly, feeling a pang of anxiety in his stomach. 

"Draco, can I ask you something?" 

Malfoy looked at him. Nodded.

"Are we stuck in time?"

Malfoy's breath hitched.

"I'm afraid so."


	2. Chapter 2

It hadn’t been a good night. Harry and Malfoy stayed up late, talking about everything that might have happened. 

The Time Machine broke? They did something wrong? Someone saw them and did something to get in their way? They had no clue. After hours of inconclusive talking, they decided to try and think about what they could do until they found a solution.

They had to disguise themselves to not be recognised amongst people, and then hope for the best. Harry had left with some money on him but neither of them could go to Gringotts and withdraw from their vaults, or their past-selves would notice it. 

In the worst case scenario, they would stay trapped in that past timeline for too long; they would need money, a place to stay, some food…

“We can’t stay in hotels all the time,” Malfoy had declared, high on the wine they ordered with the room service, head lulling on the pillow.

“Why not? t’s fun. Got good food with zero, _ zero_, efforts, warm room, posh bathrooms…”

Okay, so Harry wasn’t actually sober either.

“What’s your problem with food, Pottah? You are always eatin’...” Malfoy slurred, his lips purple from the wine. Harry felt a strong impulse to lick it off them. 

Trying to distract himself, Harry took a sip of his wine too and shoved another raspberry muffin in his mouth, talking around it. 

“Pottah… Pottah… You should hear how you sound when you say my name… it’s always been like that. Pottah, Pottah, Pottah—”

“Stop it, idiot! Gimme a muffin, too.” 

They chewed in silence for a few minutes before Malfoy’s head turned heavily towards Harry, his eyelids half closed.

“And anyway, why do we have to share a room?” 

A raspberry stuck in Harry’s throat making him cough and, frankly, gain time to think of an answer that didn’t sound like — _ I booked only one room driven by my cock’s impulses._

“It’ll be our cover. And! Less expensive. And! If we find a solution, we’re already together, and we can’t get lost… see, so many good reasonssss.”

Malfoy giggled, his eyelids sliding completely closed.

"Why all the "ssss", you sound like… like…"

"A snake?"

Malfoy's eyelids suddenly opened, the pale grey eyes just starting to show up under the dark brown of the glamour, slowly melting away.

"Don't tell me you can still talk Parseltongue!"

Harry smirked — or he hoped it was a smirk, considering his state of intoxication — and hissed something in Parseltongue.

Malfoy laughed loudly, his voice thundering out of his mouth and going straight to Harry's heart. His cheeks showed those delicious dimples again and Harry found himself smiling like a fool, thinking that if all he needed to make those dimples appear was talking a bit of Parseltongue, he'd keep doing it forever.

"Wow, Harry, that's wicked! Cool!" 

They laughed together, until Malfoy's eyelids started closing again and he whispered, “So, roommates… sure, so brilliant, Harry Pottah… just, we... see... the bond, one bed. Cast a no-touching spell for the night and… we should disguise ourselves.”

“Think tomorrow. Night, Draco.”

Malfoy hummed, mumbled a, “night, Harry,” and then opened his eyes wide, jumping on the bed. “Harry, I want pink hair!”

It was the last thing Harry heard before finally dozing off. 

The next morning, he and Malfoy were sitting in the restaurant of the hotel, eating breakfast, trying to drown their hangover in eggs and bacon. 

Except that Malfoy was still drinking that horrible slop he dared to call hot tea. 

Harry shook his head and took a sip of his strong coffee when his sight blurred and his head spun, making him grasp the edge of the table — a sudden dizziness was spreading through his body. He squinted at Malfoy, who whispered, "Fuck, Harry, your potion…"

"I-I forgot to take it yesterday before sleeping. Ugh, Dr-Draco, help—"

Harry felt Malfoy's magic flowing over him, steadying him on his chair as Malfoy got up and rushed to their room. Barely a minute later, he was back and poured the potion in Harry's coffee; gulping it, Harry could finally see clearly again.

"Oh Merlin, what— what will I do when the potions are gone? I don’t have that many more… I-I…"

"Calm down, Harry. I think I can recreate it with the right ingredients, okay? Breathe." 

Harry looked at Malfoy, taking deep breaths, focussing on his lips and the reassuring words that were coming out of them. Soon enough, he found himself both calmer and aroused. _Damn._

“Are you sure you can manage that?”

Malfoy fidgeted with the teaspoon, his eyes trained on it. 

“I mean, I do need money to buy the ingredients. So… I’d need a job. And you, too. We’ll glamour and… but I’m sure they’ll fix this and we’ll be back in no time.”

“At least look me in the eyes when you say that, you don't sound like you believe it.”

Malfoy raised his gaze biting on his bottom lip. He was about to say something when his eyebrows shot upwards and he gasped.

“Boo-boo!”

His face lit up with a big grin, the one that made his dimples appear again and Harry giggled affectionately — Malfoy was always acting like a cold, uptight man, but Harry could see he had a soft spot for Boo-boo.

Harry turned to see Boo-boo floating right behind him, lips pouting and arms crossed in front of his chest. 

“I see you’re still here. Came back for me?”

Malfoy’s smile didn’t falter at all. He just shrugged and said, “Maybe? Or maybe we found ourselves stuck in time. Which reminds me! You said something once about fixing the Time Machine! And I really didn’t like Geremia—”

Boo-boo’s eyes widened and he brought his hands to cover his mouth, a shocked expression on his face. He was shaking his head, murmuring, “no, no, no.”

Harry looked around, worried the other guests in the restaurant could hear them and cast a wordless and wandless _Muffliato._

“Boo-boo, what’s happening?” 

Boo-boo suddenly stopped, his face going back to a blank expression.

“N-nothing, I… sometimes I have moments when I think I’m remembering something, but then…”

Malfoy’s eyebrows wrinkled and he side-eyed Harry, then back at Boo-boo.

“So, you really don’t remember anything about your life?”

“I remember something… especially from my time here.”

“What exactly is _ here _ for you, Boo-boo?”

Boo-boo swallowed visibly, even for a ghost. 

“H-here, here, it’s… just, _here._ Here, the time, t-the…”

“Okay, I’m sorry, Boo-boo. I didn’t mean to confuse you, it’s okay. We’ll figure this out. In the meantime, we’ll get to spend some more time together.” 

Malfoy’s smile was smaller now but it seemed to give Boo-boo happiness all the same. He smiled and flew around the room, excitedly repeating, “yes! together again!” over and over again. 

Harry laughed — there was at least something good in this mess. Something vibrated in his pocket and, before he could get his hopes up that it was his wand signalling they were going back, he palmed his mobile through the fabric of his trousers.

He pulled it out excited: maybe Hermione had found a way to contact him? But when he looked at the screen he saw the notification: five percent battery left. 

“What are you trying to do?” Malfoy cocked his head at him, his face genuinely confused.

“Okay, Muggle lesson number one: mobiles. Muggles can’t communicate via owls, Floo or magical parchments, so they invented electricity. That’s just too elaborate to explain now, but it’s something that let them communicate even over large distances and they do it through this: mobiles.” He held out his device to show to Malfoy. “See? And I thought, maybe… lemme try something.”

Harry opened the text chat with his friends — The Mighty Lions — and typed, “Hullo, anyone here?”

He looked up and saw Malfoy looking at him sceptically. 

“If what you’re saying is true, I doubt this cellone will work here since this is a _ magical _ travel.”

And really, it made all the sense in the world, but it never hurts to try, right? Well, it hurt a little bit when no one answered his message and the mobile discharged completely. 

Malfoy tapped his fingers lightly on the table, calling Harry’s attention.

“Erm, I’m sorry. It was worth a try.” 

Harry looked in his eyes, finding a warmth there he never imagined Malfoy could ever hold for him. 

Shortly after, Boo-boo returned to their table trying to understand what Harry and Malfoy were talking about — “We could work with Muggles to reduce our chances of being recognised.” “If you think I’ll ever let myself get anywhere close to a Muggle job, you’re going crazy, Potter” — and rolling his eyes. 

He huffed and opened his mouth to say something but Harry didn’t hear him: he felt the unpleasant wrench in his gut and his chest tightened as Malfoy looked at him in panic.

“We can’t disappear here, among Muggles!” 

They barely had time to cast a quick _ Notice-Me-Not _ over their table before Harry could be happy that the familiar feeling of time travel transportation washed over him, for the first time since the New Year’s Eve party.

**One day later**

“What the fuck, where are we?!”

“Draco, language! There’s Boo-boo!”

“Okay, so I told you I’m stuck at ten years old, guys, but I’ve been around for forever, I know swear words and _ stuff_.”

“What stuff?!”

Harry left Malfoy and Boo-boo arguing about pretty much everything Boo-boo had learned in his years of time-travelling to look around himself. He couldn’t recognise the place they were, so they very much weren’t back home.

“Hey! This looks like Durmstrang!” Malfoy exclaimed suddenly, but they didn’t have any time to talk more about it—

**One day and an hour later**

Another Hop later, Harry was feeling his stomach in his throat and his head pounding as if all the woodpeckers of the world had decided to peck at it together.

“What the fuck is happening?” 

“Draco, why do you swear so much, honestly!” 

Harry looked to his left, where Boo-boo was floating weirdly silent at his side, his cheeks looking extremely more corporeal than usual… wait, was he blushing?

“Boo-boo, what’s happ—”

**One day, one hour and one minute later**

Malfoy was bent over his waist, kneeling on the floor, emptying his stomach.

Harry was barely holding it in, he could taste bile in his throat. All these Hops in time were too rapid and abrupt — their bodies didn’t have time to adjust; and they didn’t have a chance to understand where they were or in what timeline.

“Um, should we do something for him?” Boo-boo asked, pointing at Malfoy.

Harry looked at him, taking a deep breath and kneeling next to him. He whispered a healing spell, the only one he knew to ease nausea, and Malfoy finally breathed, wiping the tears from the corner of his eyes.

He croaked, “Thank you,” and looked at Harry, his face almost as transparent as Boo-boo’s.

“You’re welcome.” Harry heard himself speaking with an affectionate tone, feeling his fingers itch to touch and reassure Malfoy, help him feel better, stroke his hair, his cheeks. 

“I can’t understand what’s happening. Boo-boo—”

Harry turned to find him once again blushing in that weird ghostly way and casting curious looks right and left.

“Boo-boo,” he called again and the kid finally met his eyes.

“What’s happening?”

“I-I don’t know.” 

That had been their first experience settling into the same timeline for a longer period. 

They had lived everything in a dreamlike way, discovering they were in Sweden. They stayed there for an entire year, from December 1997 to December 1998. Harry remembered exactly where he was in that period: hunting Horcruxes with Hermione, hopeless, cold, desperate. A few dialogues with Malfoy and Harry knew he didn't have good memories about that time either.

Being so far from home meant they had the time and opportunity to think through how to survive and they’d started some of their strongest traditions — staying in Muggle hotels, sharing a room with Boo-boo, finding a job, making the potion for Harry, glamouring themselves, buying new clothes for the time period and moreover there was Harry’s project to teach Malfoy about Muggle culture.

One month in, Malfoy started eating popcorn, drinking beer, watching the worst programs on television. He developed an addiction to crime shows and movies, dragging Harry into that too. They watched _ Pulp Fiction _ an embarrassing amount of times, to the point Malfoy started asking for a Royal with Cheese to every McDonald’s they’d go to (yes, he had started eating trash food also!). Harry spent days trying to tell him he could only order it in France. 

Two months in, and Malfoy had finally become _ Draco _ in Harry’s mind too. It was probably because they spent all the time they had together, Harry thought. It had nothing to do with _ feelings _ or how good jeans looked wrapped around Draco’s bum. Draco had also found a solution for Harry’s potions, creating a successful new one that would replenish itself. He had bragged about it hours on end, Harry rolling his eyes and internally drooling at how brilliant Draco could be sometimes.

Three months in, and every time Harry looked at Draco he felt his heartbeat quicken. While at work — selling flowers to all kind of souls — he thought about Draco, was he fine? what was he doing now? Every time Draco spoke, Harry’s gaze was fixed on his lips, every moment they spent together Harry tried hard to make him laugh to see his dimples, to hear his joy. Sometimes he’d try to speak some Parseltongue too, which made Malfoy more flushed than amused, much to Harry’s pleasure.

Four months in, and Harry started thinking that maybe, maybe he _ was _ capable of loving. Draco would dye his hair a different colour each month and this time he had red hair. It was while looking at his dyed hair that Harry knew it, once and for all, he had fallen for this eccentric Draco Malfoy, who loved doing yoga every morning, dyeing his hair, and looked like an angel every time he smiled.

Five months in, and Draco confessed his feelings to Harry. “I can’t ignore it anymore,” he said, “I fucking love you, damn.” Harry laughed until he was breathless. “Is that the way to confess one’s feelings, Draco?” He stuck out his tongue and smirked, saying, “Yes, yes it’s the way if you fall in love with Harry fucking Potter.”

Six months in, and Harry was dying with frustration. Every time they watched a movie with Boo-boo or went out eating all together like a happy family, he’d think he wanted to hug Draco, hold his hand, kiss him, stroke his hair, anything, anything to have some contact. But the potion only helped his bond to be dormant, not to shield him from the pain he’d feel when touching someone else. 

Seven months in, and Boo-boo told them he’d stay in the atrium of the hotel — he didn’t want to be a burden and it wasn’t like he could be in any kind of danger. Harry smiled at him, at his innocence. That night, Draco finally saw his first Muggle porn movie. He had spent half the time criticising the poor acting skills versus the realism of porn memories you looked at in Pensieves, and half the time with his hand in his pants.

_ “Nggh, Harry, fuck, I need you, I want to kiss you, please, I…” His voice was broken by gasps and moans, his hand working long teasing pulls on his cock. _

_ Harry had been mesmerised by the sight, by how truly beautiful Draco Malfoy was when he was aroused with his cock in his hand, leaking pre-come, and looking heavily into Harry’s eyes. Harry immediately grasped his own cock, stroking it in time with Draco. _

_ “I desire you, too, Draco,” he had choked out, his balls tightening with his orgasm close, enhanced by months of frustration. _

_ Draco had quickened his movements, his groans filling the air of their room, his voice almost desperate. “I want you, oh Harry, I want you to take me, to thrust your cock in me, Harry—” he came, biting his lips, murmuring Harry’s name over and over again. _

_ Harry came seconds later, images of the two of them having sex flooding his eyes, crying out, “I love you, Draco.” _

Eight months in, that had become a routine, too. They bought some dildos and plugs and played around with them. One memorable time, Draco had magically affixed the dildo onto the bed and bounced on it while Harry watched, cock in hand. Nothing was anything near satisfying — Harry needed more, needed to kiss those rosy lips, to lick Draco’s tantalising neck, touch his pert arse, bury himself into him. 

Nine months in, and Harry was almost used to this life. Boo-boo, Draco, the flowers, the hotel room, the cold Swedish air and the breathtaking landscapes. The first time they went to a park together and saw a deer, Harry had cried for hours. But he found himself more than once with his mobile in his hands, the chat ‘The Mighty Lions’ open, a string of texts which read more or less the same. “Hi, anyone here?” “Hello.” “Hi friends.” “I miss you.”

Ten months in, Harry and Draco had adopted Boo-boo. Not literally, but the feeling of familial affection came naturally. 

_ They were having dinner out, yellow pea soup and pancakes, Draco’s favourites. Boo-boo smiled, inhaled loudly, and said, “I love it here with you, dads.” _

_ Draco’s breath hitched, but a big genuine smile showed up on his face together with his delicious dimples. It always did that when he was speaking or referring to Boo-boo. _

_ “Dads?” He asked, gleeful tone. _

_ Boo-boo’s cheeks once again did that thing where it looked like he was blushing and stuttered, “I-I mean, s-sorry. In my head, you’ve always been kind of, of… of parents for me, and-and…” _

_ Harry’s grin crossed his face from ear to ear. “That’s beautiful, Boo-boo. We love you, too, you know that, right?” _

_ “And we’ll be together forever?” _

_ Draco’s smile trembled and he cleared his throat, avoiding Boo-boo’s gaze. “I mean, you know that we could… that we have people waiting for us. We could…” _

_ Boo-boo frowned but his voice sounded calmer. “Well then, it will be good while it lasts.” _

Eleven months in, and Draco’s hair was turquoise and Harry completely lost it for him. Their tub wanking sessions had multiplied and Harry couldn’t be happier than having all this time with Draco. He got to know so much about him, his life and choices, during their nightly chats, about Draco’s love for light blue jumpers, his absolute huge fear of bugs, how he would go on long French rants when he was angry, how it turned Harry on, how Harry speaking Parseltongue turned Draco on.

Twelve months in, and it occurred to Harry to check the calendar. He was shocked to find it was just a week past the anniversary of their last Hop. Surely Hermione and Geremia would be close to finding a solution and get them back home, right? He started maniacally counting every day that passed, much to Boo-boo and Draco’s dismay. “Harry, it’s of no use,” was Draco’s favourite phrase. 

As they were drinking coffee and hot tea in their hotel room — “Did you remember…” “Two teaspoons of cold milk and one of sugar? Of course, Draco. I knew how you took your tea when we pretended to hate each other at school, I know it now that I love you.” — the unpleasant feeling of guts wrenching hit them and they braced themselves for another Hop in time.

**Two Years Later**

“Aaaaah!” Draco’s shout came from the bathroom of their hotel room in Muggle London. 

Harry ran to him, fearing the worst. He threw the door open to find Draco standing in front of the mirror, his hands in his hair.

“What? What happened?!” Harry asked, approaching him, seeing Boo-boo right at his side, murmuring that Draco really was a drama queen, everyone in the hotel could hear his cry.

“Harry, my hair! Look, my hair!” 

Harry looked at Draco’s hair closely — the electric blue was almost completely worn off and his roots were completely blond.

“Draco, we have a whole new stack of dye, what’s the mat—”

“What’s the matter, he asks!” Draco cried in a dramatic tone that made Boo-boo snort and Harry smile amused.

“I have a grey hair! I’m _ old_!” 

Harry looked at him with wide eyes, thinking of all the possible replies he could give Draco without getting him mad. In the end, he went with, “I’m… sorry?” 

“He’s sorry!” Draco shrieked again, and if ghosts could cry, Boo-boo would have tears of laughter streaming down his face.

And really, Draco could be such a drama queen sometimes. So, Harry thought of breaking the tension with a little innocent joke.

“Honey, your hair is white blond, you absolutely can’t tell the difference.”

Apparently, it wasn’t the right thing to say.

“How _ dare _ you!” Draco hissed, his eyes flashing. “What does that mean, huh? That I _ always _ look old because my hair is _ always _ grey?”

“N-no, I mean, I, erm, not grey, they, erm, white blond, it’s—”

“White blond is old, Harry!”

Boo-boo laughed, floating right behind Draco and talking to his reflection in the mirror. 

“Dad, your hair is just fine. Have you seen the mess of Harry’s hair? Don’t listen to him, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You’re handsome and if you have some grey hair then you’ll simply look sexier.” 

Harry looked on the scene horrified — those words should have probably been coming out of Harry’s mouth, not Boo-boo’s.

Draco turned to Harry and smirked, like he’d read his mind, the git. “See, that’s how you should talk to me.”

And that was how they started noticing the years passing by. Harry was already obsessed with counting the passing of every day; trying to remember exactly what day it would be in their real timeline, trying to remember their birthdays and anniversaries. But he hadn’t realised how confusing it was starting to be.

Three years had passed, they were thirty when they left, thirty-three now. Harry still couldn’t see the difference between the normal colour of Draco’s hair and the grey, but he could see his own beard turning greyish and the whiter strands in his hair perfectly fine. 

Fuck, he missed home.

**Ten Years Later — France**

Sometimes Harry would look over at Draco and know instinctively what he’d do.

Thirteen years together could do that.

Like right now, the two of them were sunbathing on the shores of Nice, endless white sand beneath them, the breathless blue sea Harry was now used to, after almost eight years spent in France. The sunset was approaching and the scene in front of his eyes was bathed in orange, only a few people still sprawled on the beach like them. 

Harry looked at Draco and smiled — he knew Draco was getting ready to do his yoga exercises. He stretched his beach towel perfectly, placing one rock at each corner to anchor it down. Took out his yoga wooden brick and placed himself on it, closing his eyes, taking deep breaths, his hands joined at heart-height. 

How he could still find the strength to do yoga at forty-three years old, Harry had no idea. He had given up on it soon after Draco tried to involve him — relaxation and slow breathing weren’t really his kicks. 

“Doing salutations to the sun?” Harry asked, a playful smile in place. 

“No, you git, I’m merely meditating right now.” Draco cracked one eye open and huffed. “Where’s Boo-boo?”

“He’s gone sweeping the sea.” 

Draco now opened both his eyes and they stared at the horizon, where sky and water met in a trembling line, in front of them in silence.

Draco broke the silence, his voice a whisper. “I missed France.”

They’d been there for the last eight years. And those years were the best they’ve had in their time-travelling, so Draco tried to draw some conclusions. It appeared that the travelling was linked to them in some way — the more relaxed they were, the longer they stayed in a precise timeline and place. Usually the change happened when they had a fight, most likely about the real possibilities of getting back home one day.

Harry was still convinced Hermione and Geremia would find a solution, still wrote on ‘The Mighty Lions’ chat from time to time. Draco thought he was delusional; they were destined to be blocked forever.

“You know, in these last years I haven’t asked, I wanted to give you time, but… since you said that… why don’t you tell me something about your childhood here?”

Draco turned to smile at him, his skin slightly reddened from the sun. This period he had let his beard grow, but since he couldn’t _ actually _ grow one, he only had some rough patches on his jawline. Harry loved it. 

"I'd actually love to show you around."

They found Boo-boo closer to the rocks, and asked him to join them. He looked at them smiling, saying he’d rather remain a bit longer at the beach.

That was when Draco took Harry to visit his childhood home, a big Manor similar to the one in London; telling him how he had spent the first six years of his life there, and then always came back every summer. It was currently 1985, past-Draco was five years old and they snooped around the French household under the Invisibility Cloak.

Harry had grown almost fond of using the Cloak — by now it was the moment he could feel the closest to Draco, when his scent spread in every air cell around Harry, making Harry wonder about the man he loved, fantasise of when they'd be back in the hotel and he could feel that scent on his body.

Draco showed him his room and why did he never tell Harry he had curly hair when he was a kid? 

"Actually," he said, "I still have curly hair.”

Harry stopped, frozen, right when they were passing through the window doors of the kitchen, a house-elf cooking dinner. 

"You what! And I never discovered that in thirteen years? How!"

Draco snorted, gesturing to Harry to move and follow him. They started walking again, looking around the gardens.

"My father said it made me look too feminine and always straightened it. I simply never broke the habit." 

"From now on you're wearing it natural, I'm begging you."

Harry made his best puppy eyes and Draco giggled, shadows of his dimples on his cheeks.

"I'll see what I can do, but I make no promises." 

The gardens were worthy of the Palace of Versailles. They had visited it the first year they arrived in France and now Harry couldn't help but think that Draco had lived like a prince. 

Everywhere he looked there were lush bushes of flowers and trees of every kind — Draco had told him his favourites were the orchids and the peach trees that were currently flowering so that the ground all around them was a stunning big pink carpet. 

Draco pulled off the Cloak, smiling at Harry. “My mother and I were the only ones coming to this part of the garden. It was our thing. She wouldn’t let any house-elf near her precious trees, so I grew up learning how to prune, trim and take care of plants with her. I used to love to get my hands dirty doing work like that, the scent of soil and flowers used to make me serene.”

He picked up a pink flower from the soil and approached Harry, stopping mere inches from him, his breath ghosting over Harry’s lips. He brought the flower to Harry’s nostrils and Harry inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. 

“It’s sweet, isn’t it?” Draco murmured onto his lips, Harry could almost taste him. 

“Kiss me, kiss me, Draco, kiss me,” Harry unleashed his plea in a stream of whispers, eyes still closed, mind clouded and intoxicated from the sent of Draco and the flower. 

Draco brushed his lips on Harry’s, it was almost imperceptible. Harry felt a light spark run down his spine, to the core of his magic. But stilled. They had discovered, only a few months ago, that the lightest touch would only make Harry feel mildly dizzy and little sparks shock in him. 

It wasn’t nearly enough. It almost killed Harry with want. But it was everything they had and Harry would be damned if he’d let a few sparks scare him. 

He sucked in a breath and lingered a bit longer, Draco’s lips feather-light on his, his tea taste the faintest on Harry. A tear rolled down Harry’s cheek. 

“I desire you, honey,” he whispered, each word causing a spark through Harry’s body, raising goosebumps on his skin.

Draco stepped back, taking deep breaths. Harry opened his eyes: Draco’s smile mismatched the tears streaming down his face. 

Draco’s voice trembled when he said, “Come with me, I want to show you something.” He wiggled two fingers to a place not much further. Harry wiped the tear on his cheek, raked a hand in his hair and made to follow Draco, trying to ignore his aching heart.

Barely one minute after they reached a little open space bordered by ancient trees — oaks, Draco said — and…

“Your treehouse!” Right on one of the oaks stood proud Draco’s treehouse. It was unlike anything Harry could have ever imagined: it was huge, with wooden stairs to reach it, big enough to actually fit grown ups too. 

“You little posh kid, look how huge it is! Can we go inside?”

Draco beamed, the tears finally gone from his face. 

“Of course we can. I know you won’t believe it, but my father built it. I loved it, Harry. I always used to play here with my friends.” He started climbing the stairs and Harry followed him, images of a little curly-haired Draco playing in a treehouse with his friends soothing his heart. 

The inside of the treehouse was just as impressive as the outside: it had three — _three!_ — rooms, pillows, ottomans, incredibly sophisticated drapes, blankets. One room was full of children’s books, the kind Harry had never seen, they were all wizarding books. He took one and flipped through the pages, amazed to see the pictures moving, and the doodles little Draco had drawn on the pages come to life. When he was done Harry gently placed the book down and continued on, reaching Draco in the last room. It was more unadorned than the other two, only a little wooden desk with a chair and drawings hung on the walls. 

Draco was kneeling on the floor, an ear-to-ear grin on his face, papers all around himself with a stack of brushes and watercolours. 

“Draco, you draw? You paint? You didn’t tell me anything! Thirteen years, honey, and I’m only now discovering you have curly hair and can draw?!”

Harry scanned the drawings on the walls, impressed by the quality of art drawn by a five-year-old kid. He couldn’t draw like that now, and he was forty-three. Draco drew incredibly detailed landscapes, his house, a squirrel, a hippogriff, the peacocks, lavender fields… he used to draw anything. 

Draco answered from the floor, barely keeping his happiness out of his voice. “I know, I’m sorry, Harry. I just… forgot some things I used to do as a kid, you know? You grow up and leave some stuff behind.” He turned and started touching the walls, his hands quickly roaming on the wood, searching behind the drawings. 

“Damn, I can’t find it. How is that possible? I wanted to show you…” 

Harry kneeled next to him, drawing his wand. “You can try to _ Accio _ it?”

Draco bit on his lips, looking lost for a moment. Trying to think how to make him happier, Harry had a silly idea and hoped it would work.

“What if… what if we carve our initials in here? It would be fun!”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Harry, how many times do I have to tell you, we can’t interfere with the—”

He stopped, bringing a hand to cover his mouth, his eyes widening. “Oh, fucking Merlin’s blue balls,” he whispered, staring at Harry.

“Draco? You’re scaring me. What’s happening?”

Draco snorted, shaking his head. “Do it. I’m gonna tell you after.”

Harry looked at him puzzled, but did it anyway. He didn’t feel like contradicting Draco too much in this moment. He pointed his wand and etched their letters in the wall:

D+H encircled in a heart.

Draco’s eyes were shining when he turned to look at him and Harry ached to take him into his arms, hug him, whispering love words into his ears. Draco looked up at him, his voice broke. 

“I… grew up with this.” He pointed to their initials, his hand trembling. “I always thought it was some kind of magic… like, some kind of bond? I don’t know. I was so little, I had no idea of what was possible and what not. I thought that ‘H’… oh Merlin, I thought it was some kind of fairy magic, that someone had etched here the initial of… of…”

“Your soulmate.”

Draco nodded, his eyes fluttering closed and his smile hollowing his cheeks in the dimples Harry loved so much. Damn, but he wanted to brush his fingers over them, kiss them, worship them with his lips.

“When I… every time I met someone whose name started with an ‘H’, I was so dreamy, like, _ maybe it’s them._ Then I met you at school, the great… Harry Potter. _ Harry… _”

They stared at each other, Harry’s mouth open in surprise. They didn’t dare say anything else. During their walk home, Boo-boo joined them again, asking what happened but neither of them felt like saying anything. 

The implications of what happened were heavy, settling into Harry’s soul like a soft caress. This couldn’t be just a coincidence, they were meant to do this time travel; in some way, what they were doing now had already happened, had already been part of their lives. And Draco… of everything Harry discovered about him, knowing he believed in soulmates was the most shocking thing.

Once back in the hotel, Draco with his cup of hot tea and Harry with a beer, they finally started talking. 

“It seems that our time-travel, that this is kind of… predestined?” Draco said, looking at Harry warily. 

Harry nodded. “I was thinking the same.”

“What does that mean?” Boo-boo asked, with such an honest face that he really looked like the ten-year-old kid his body showed.

“It means that whatever we’re doing in this time-travel, our interactions with the Muggles we meet and work with, our wanderings through the city, everything we say and do without even realising it, we’re leaving an impact, we’re leaving something behind. Something our past selves already lived.”

Boo-boo’s mouth opened in a circle, oohing at the discovery. He seemed perplexed for a few moments and then began, “Did it mean we were destined to witness Harry’s parents’ death too?”

Harry sucked in a breath, trying not to panic at the memory. That had been a moment during their living in Muggle London that he really wished he could erase from his memory.

Shortly after discovering they were growing older they had a fight and the Time Machine abruptly sent them back further in time, to Godric’s Hollow. Harry didn’t understand it immediately, but a glance around the neighbourhood they were in and he understood. It was where his parents lived when they were hiding from Voldemort.

Draco tried to persuade him to go away, to leave the past as it was, but Harry wasn’t able to think clearly. He cast a quick Disillusionment charm on himself and sped to the house, desperation making him hope, hope that maybe he could have done something, anything, to stop Voldemort. Draco trailed behind him but nothing he said could make Harry relent or change his mind, not even Draco’s plea for Harry to spare himself a view he’d never forget, nor trying to remind Harry that if he’d changed the past, he would never exist like this today.

Once there, Harry spent hours staring at his parents taking care of him, loving him, playing with him. Not long after, Voldemort was breaking through the Fidelius Charm, James shouted to Lily to grab Harry and run away and Harry couldn’t think anymore. It was the first time Draco touched him — he had no choice. 

Casting a powerful Silencing Charm, Draco took Harry in his arms, holding him back from doing anything, trying to whisper calming thoughts to him, hugging him tightly to his chest, kissing his forehead, his hair. Harry didn’t know if he was feeling the pain of the bond shouting to him that he couldn’t be held by anyone who wasn’t Jacob, or feeling the pain of hearing his mother die. Thankfully, Draco was covering his eyes, by clutching him to his chest.

They hardly talked about that anymore. Harry knew Draco and Boo-boo had talked about it, Draco had tried to explain to Boo-boo about Voldemort and to calm him down after witnessing Harry’s parents’ death, but he couldn’t bring himself to think more about it. 

Until now.

He looked over to Draco, who was looking at him with apprehension written all over his face. Harry exhaled slowly and turned to Boo-boo.

“I’m sorry, Boo-boo. Sorry I didn’t talk about it anymore or try to explain… I… um. Think you could be right.” He side-eyed Draco, who had his eyebrows knitted together, doubt now replacing apprehension. 

“You remember the Dementors, right? Well, when they were near me I would always… _ hear _ my mother’s death. Remus told me the Dementors make you relive the worst memories of your life, so that made sense, but I was so little… I always asked myself how could I remember so well the green light, my mother shouting my name.”

Draco was silently crying, his tears dripping in his — now probably cold — tea. Boo-boo sniffed, muttered a low, “I’m sorry Harry” and settled right next to him, telling him he would sleep with them tonight.

Harry smiled, feeling loved and lucky to have them even if in such a difficult moment. He took a sip of his beer and decided to do as he always did, and use sarcasm. 

“Thankfully, no one has ever decided to use my fear of Dementors against me, especially not during a Quidditch match.” 

Draco covered his face with his hands, blushing to the root of his hair, muttering into his hands, “Dear Salazar, I’m the worst.”

From that moment, the discussion moved onto more carefree and lighter topics, and by the time they fell asleep Harry felt better, his last thought something about soulmates and a curly-locked Draco kissing him. 

**Seven Years Later — Muggle London**

France had definitely been the best period Harry and Draco had spent during their time-travelling. 

After discovering that Harry could bear very short and soft touches, they’d started to do it more often, almost kissing, brief grazing of lips on foreheads, hands light on hands. 

Sex was always impossible for the most part. France had been strongly aphrodisiac for them and they spent a lot of time wanking together under the warm spray of the shower, Harry on his knees, opening his mouth to catch a taste of Draco. 

Or Draco would often lay on his stomach on the bed, his fingers working inside his puckered hole, and Harry would watch behind him, stroking his own cock until he released his hot come all over Draco’s arse. Usually Draco came untouched by Harry, streaming his hot come on the sheets, moaning the most beautiful sounds Harry could ever imagine.

There had been times when Harry had hissed Parseltongue naughties to Draco’s ear till he came completely untouched, only asking Harry to ‘please, keep on, keep on, _ yes’._

Other times, Harry would lay down on the bed, Draco straddling above him, bringing himself over the edge and finally covering Harry’s body with his sweet release. Harry could never get enough of it.

And in between all the rediscovery of each other, they’d visit loads of new places, Boo-boo and Harry competing on who was the most excited about it all. Draco was now completely addicted to Muggle culture and finally had his Royal with Cheese.

They had entered a McDonald’s and he’d slowly approached the counter, undulating his hips, snarling, “Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly—”

Harry had hidden his face behind his hands when the cashier had looked completely unabashed at Draco, their eyes emotionless. “Let me guess, you want a _ le Royal Cheese_.”

Draco flushed to the tip of his ears and nodded. He had ranted hours on end about the cashier who didn’t let him finish his _ amazing _ impression of Samuel L. Jackson, much to Boo-boo’s amusement, but in the end he was happy finally getting to try it. 

But, as it was now becoming natural, a few days later the upsetting feeling of being wrenched away hauled Harry and Draco from their French idyll to transport them back to London, again. It seemed to be their full circle: every time they’d been transported to some new place, they would then be transported back to Muggle London, only to be transported far away after a while and then back to Muggle London again.

In the beginning, Draco had tried to find a pattern to the time-travel, but soon gave up when he resigned to the idea of travelling through time forever. Harry still tried to make hypotheses and find links, but it was getting too frustrating, after all those years.

So here they were, snooping around Hogwarts from time to time, getting to spy on their old selves, mocking each other, showing Boo-boo around their old school. Apparently, he couldn’t be seen by the ghosts of Hogwarts either. 

It was 1995, their fifth year. They’d just watched their fight on the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, celebrated their anniversary, and went to bed.

Harry hadn’t slept that night. He was sick of Draco’s negativity. They’d be back home, eventually, Harry was sure of it.

The morning after, they went to their usual pub to have breakfast together, Harry ordered Draco’s hot tea with two teaspoons of cold milk and one of sugar, and a cappuccino for himself. Boo-boo entered with them, curiously eyeing the other customers.

“Draco,” Harry started, not knowing how to talk about it without fighting again. “I need you to stop bringing all this negativity to us. There’s a pattern in our travels, I know it and—”

Draco held out a hand in front of Harry’s face, shutting him down. 

“I don’t wanna talk about it again. We’ve been back and forth for twenty years, Harry. Twenty. You’ve got grey hair, my eyes and mouth are ploughed by wrinkles. It’s about time you resign to this.” 

He went back to drinking his tea, tearing his eyes off Harry, picking up a biscuit.

“Hey, what about we go to Hyde P—”

“Shut up!” Harry yelled, all the other customers’ eyes snapping to him. Draco froze, slowly raising his gaze to him.

“Excuse me?” He hissed, a storm brewing in his eyes.

Harry lowered his voice, trying to control the rage rising in him. “I said. Shut. Up. I want to go back, Draco. I’ll-hell, I’ll find a way, I just need your help!”

Draco stood up, the chair dragging on the floor with a disturbing noise. 

“I’m fed up with this discussion, Harry. We have it every other day. Call me when you’ve made peace with yourself.”

He turned to leave but Boo-boo called for him, “Draco! Dad, wait!” 

Draco twisted his neck, looking at him, shaking his head. “Bye, Boo-boo.” 

Harry watched Draco’s back as he walked away, his shoulders tight in a nervous line. He and Boo-boo stayed together for the rest of the morning — Boo-boo kept telling Harry he needed to fix things with Draco, that he was probably only scared by the situation, that they could overcome it.

Harry tried to answer him kindly but after a couple of hours together, finally asked Boo-boo to leave him alone. He needed time to himself. He wandered through the city, that Muggle London he now knew like his own pockets. It was a cloudy day, the smell of rain heavy in the air. 

Hoping to not meet anyone he knew, Harry went to a park nearby, laying on the grass and watching the sky, trying to guess the funny forms of the clouds. The first drop of rain splashed Harry’s glasses as a tear crossed his cheek. 

Twenty years. Twenty years with Draco Malfoy, nineteen of which they spent in love, touching, craving each other, whispering endearments, learning each other’s bodies and souls by heart. Was it their limit? Nineteen years was the expiration date on their relationship? Harry closed his eyes as several other tears joined the first one and the rain started pouring furiously, drenching him. 

No. He didn’t spend nineteen years at Draco’s side to throw all to the bin for a stupid fight. They’d solve this one too — after all, their situation wasn’t the easiest, it was normal to have such arguments, right? 

Harry stood up abruptly, running to their hotel, noticing distractedly the sun was already down and hoping to find both Boo-boo and Draco back there. He stepped through the atrium dripping water all around himself, a little puddle already forming at his feet. He cast an apologising gaze to the receptionist who shrugged and went back to her duties. 

Harry hurried to their room on the third floor, fishing the key out of his pocket and opening the door with trembling hands. As soon as he entered the room, Draco’s head snapped to him, his eyes bloodshot. Boo-boo was floating in front of him and he beamed when he saw Harry at the door.

“Where have you been?” Draco snapped, getting out of bed and casting a perfect drying charm on Harry. Harry sighed, choking out, “I want to hug you.”

“Harry...” 

“I’m fifty years old and I want to hug the man I love. I’m so sick of this.”

Draco reached a finger to Harry’s cheek, grazing it light as air, slowly tracing his cheekbone.

“You’re so beautiful. Please, let’s just stop fighting over this. I love you, Harry. I love you.”

Harry smiled, leaning into Draco’s touch until the sparks going down his spine became too strong to bear. He stepped back and glanced at Boo-boo. He was smiling but his eyes looked almost as if they were watering with tears.

“Boo-boo…”

“It’s fine,” he said, agitating his hands in front of him as if to excuse himself. “It’s fine! I’m only a bit emotive, um.” 

Harry and Draco exchanged a perplexed look, Boo-boo usually didn’t react like that to their fights, but they let it go. All in all, time was passing for him too.

They went to sleep without eating that night, lost in conversation about their love, about what they liked in each other, reminding each other how wonderful the other was. The last thing Harry remembered, before drifting off to sleep, was Draco murmuring into his ear how lucky he had been to meet Harry, to have him in his life, that he would never exchange this cursed life with another if it meant losing Harry.


	3. Chapter 3

**January 7, 2010**

Harry woke up with a start, seeing Draco’s wide and scared eyes fixed on his. The damned Time Machine was hauling them once again, if the annoying stomach ache he felt was anything to go by. He shut his eyes, feeling Draco huff, “Oh no,” when they disappeared.

When Harry felt solid ground beneath his feet once again he opened his eyes, looking around himself in confusion. Draco was crouched on the floor, his face the usual green-tone it assumed when they were transported from one era to another. Before he could fully take in where they were, a feminine voice reached his ears.

“Harry! Draco! What are you doing here already? We didn’t expect you for another eleven hours.”

Harry turned abruptly, his heart jumping to his throat. Standing right in front of him were a perplexed Hermione Granger and even more perplexed Geremia Sprut. 

He jumped forward, taking Hermione in his arms, squeezing her against his chest, ignoring the roaring pain his bond was making him feel. 

Hermione Granger was real, real and solid against him, and he was back in the Unspeakables laboratories! This couldn’t be true. She disentangled the hug, murmuring that—

“Harry, you’re gonna inflict yourself with a heart attack!” 

Meanwhile, Draco reached them, coming to stand right next to Harry. 

“What does that mean _ we didn’t expect you for another eleven hours_?” He asked with a trembling voice.

Geremia answered, “You’ve been away for barely one hour. Did something go wrong?”

Harry turned to look at Draco, seeing him lose several shades of colours from his face, now whiter than ever. And only now realising something else...

“Fuck, Draco! You’re thirty years old! Your… you don’t have any wrinkles! Your...skin, your clothes are loose, what—”

Draco seemed to be thinking the exact same thing.

“Your hair is black! And your beard, you have none!”

“Okay, what is happening guys?” Hermione asked, snapping her fingers in front of their eyes. 

“‘Mione, we’ve been trapped and time-travelling for the last twenty years, I swear, it’s true! Boo-boo… oh Merlin, where’s Boo-boo!?”

“The ghost?” Hermione asked. Geremia was still staring imperiously at them, his eyes cold as stone fixed on them.

“_Again _ with this ghost story?”

Harry and Draco started telling their story, ignoring Geremia’s grumbling, trying to be as precise as they could be. They left out how they discovered they loved each other, but told them all about their continuous hopping from one timeline to another; how they thought there was a pattern but never found it; about Boo-boo; and how they realised their trip had been predestined.

At these words, Geremia’s eyes seemed to sparkle with interest and he started writing down everything they were saying, quickly scribbling on his parchments, seemingly tracing lines and arrows all over his thoughts. It had been a frantic tell, concluded by Draco shouting out, “Shit, Jacob! We know where he is, call the Aurors!”

Turns out twenty years are quite a lot, but thankfully, the memories from the time they’d found Jacob and Louis were still intact. A few instructions and the Aurors were able to find them and bring them to St. Mungo’s where Harry and Draco were impatiently waiting for them, the adrenaline of the moment amplifying everything. 

Harry’s mind felt empty, as if he couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t Jacob and having his stupid bond removed once and for all. When he finally saw him entering the room at St. Mungo’s that Draco set up for the breaking of the bond, Harry wasn’t even angry anymore.

He almost greeted the fucker with a smile, reassurance warming his entire soul. He was almost free. Draco didn’t seem to be as forgiving, and when he saw Jacob, he wasn’t able to refrain from some scathing lines, bullying him around and using his patented sneer and ‘you’re a dead man’ gaze. 

Harry snorted seeing it, it was once reserved for only him. Seeing it now focussed on someone who had offended Harry was like watching all the planets align in harmony. Draco made it fast and efficient: when Jacob refused to speak, the Aurors would force him, when Jacob would say ‘I don’t remember’ they’d threaten to use Legilimency, when Jacob tried to secure Harry’s pity: ‘please, Mr Potter, you’re amazing, I love everything you do’, he received a very angry Draco shutting him up.

Half an hour later, Harry was free; Jacob and Louis were being transported to the Ministry jail, leaving Harry and Draco alone in the room. They looked at each other, twenty years of want and love leaping out of them. 

Draco practically ran to Harry, pinning him against the wall of the room, latching his mouth to every visible part of Harry’s body — his mouth, his ear, his neck, his collarbone. Harry sighed into the kiss, opening his mouth, capturing Draco’s bottom lip between his teeth till it bled, arching his back to rut against Draco’s thigh shoved between his legs.

Draco cast an extremely strong wandless and wordless locking spell on the door of the room and a powerful _Muffliato_, then started kissing Harry again, whispering on his skin, “love, my love, so beautiful, so sweet, I love you, my love” over and over again.

Harry’s tears broke free like a flooding river that strikes everything in its path. He sobbed as Draco’s hands finally touched every part of his body, ripping Harry’s clothes off of him, carrying him to the hospital bed, sparing a moment to roam his eyes all over Harry’s naked body.

“Beautiful, handsome, my love, my love. I know your body by heart and now… I can touch you. My love.” 

Harry’s heart was exploding at hearing Draco calling him ‘love’ endlessly and he felt a lump forming in his throat — he didn’t know what to say, what to do, he stared as Draco undressed himself and climbed onto the bed, straddling him, returning to kiss every single centimetre of Harry’s body.

He kissed and bit and licked, nudging Harry behind the ear, the lobes, trailing kisses on his cheekbones, his jawline, biting on his collarbone. Harry groaned, pushing up toward Draco, feeling their cocks bumping, and trembling at the new feeling. He dreamt of this for so long, he couldn’t believe this was true. 

With a muttered spell, Draco lubed his hand and brought it to his arse, slipping a finger inside like he had done thousands of times under Harry’s hungry eyes.

Harry murmured, “I-fuck, Draco, I can do that, I can—”

Draco shut him up with a kiss, a messy kiss which ended with Draco pinching Harry’s nipples with his other hand, while gasping into Harry’s lips when he found his sweet spot inside of himself.

“Love, want you, need you, want to make love to you.” 

With the little sanity that was left in Harry’s brain, he lubed his hand with the same spell Draco used, then slicked his cock, teasing himself with slow tugs, praying he’d last more than five seconds. All these new feelings of skin on skin were already inebriating Harry and he looked up at Draco, his beautiful Draco, drinking him in, with his curls finally falling around his face, little drops of perspiration on his skin. 

He felt like all of Harry’s dreams merged together, like bread given to a starving man. WIth a frustrated noise, Draco snatched Harry’s hand off his cock and grasped it himself, lining it up with his hole, and lowering himself on it until the head slipped in.

They both gasped and Harry raised his knees, planting his feet on the bed, digging his fingers in the soft flesh on Draco’s hips, knowing he’d leave bruises and smiling because that wouldn’t be a real pain, but something welcomed. 

“Nngh, honey, you’re so fucking hot and tight…” Harry whispered, holding onto him for dear life. Draco smiled hotly, his cheeks showing two perfect dimples, melting Harry’s already nonexistent bones. He lowered again, slowly, until he bottomed out and was fully seated on Harry’s cock. 

He leaned in to kiss Harry again, slower this time, wriggling his hips, his hole pulsing around Harry’s cock. Draco buried his hands in Harry’s hair, tugging lightly, bringing his mouth to Harry’s ear, sucking on it, “I’ll ride the fuck out of you, love, my love. I’ll ride you until you lose your mind, my love, you are mine.”

Harry clutched his hands tight around Draco’s waist and thrust in, matching Draco’s wiggling hips, his toes curling on the sheets. 

“Honey, this isn’t painful… I can’t, you, your touches… they feel good.” The tears never stopped streaming down Harry’s face and Draco licked them away, finally rising on his cock and then sinking down again, setting up a slow pace that maddened them both. 

Their hands flew all over their bodies, exploring, touching, finally having each other, their lips releasing litanies of love, brushing on each other over and over again. 

“Draco, honey, I can’t hold back anymore,” Harry said in a broken whisper, his moans louder with every slap of Draco’s arse on his cock. Draco was trembling over him, and he looked down at him with half closed lids, his breath coming in hot puffs on Harry’s face.

“I-I’m com—” he started saying as his cock pulsed and hot stripes of come showered Harry’s chest, some drops hitting his chin. Draco groaned and stilled to move in circles with Harry’s cock deep in arse, brushing his prostrate all through his orgasm. 

“Fuck, fuck, I love it, keep on, Harry, I want to—” he stole another kiss from Harry, breathing hard around it, trapping Harry’s face with his hands. “I want to feel your come filling me, love, come in me, make me yours.”

It was the last straw; with a couple of thrusts Harry came, crying Draco’s name between kisses, pumping his release in his lover’s perfect arse. His whole body tensed up and then relaxed, embracing Draco’s spent body on his, his arms still secured around his waist, holding tight.

Draco rubbed his face on Harry’s, laughing lightly. “It’s weird to feel you without a beard,” he giggled, raising from Harry’s body and slipping out of him. Harry whimpered and pulled him down again, capturing his swollen lips in his mouth, sucking on them. 

“Don’t go, I want you, honey, I want you again.” He wiggled his hips to make Draco feel exactly how much he wanted him again, his cock still hard at the thought of having Draco all for himself. 

Draco snorted and got up, casting a shy _ Scourgify _ on both of them and starting to dress. “First let’s go home, shall we?”

* * *

_ **Epilogue** _

* * *

Just like that, they had a ‘home’ together. After that chaotic day, they’d moved in together in the wizarding neighbourhood near Draco’s office in a tiny flat where they spent the majority of their time fucking loving each other.

They came out to all of their friends the next day, inviting them over for lunch, telling their stories with beer, coca-cola, popcorn and Draco insisting they should all watch _ Pulp Fiction _ together. 

And sure, it had been difficult and strange. They’d lived together for twenty years, they’d seen each other grow old and now they were again thirty years old, their bodies young and strong again, their hearts still inevitably in love. But now that they could be together for real, nothing else seemed to matter. 

After lunch, they went back to the Unspeakables laboratories with Hermione and Geremia to try and solve the problem with the Time Machine. Geremia still had his sceptic attitude, rejecting every possible explanation Hermione tried to come up with, until Draco rummaged in the pockets of his jeans and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He looked over to Harry, calling him close to him, landing a soft kiss on his cheek. 

He started doing that every time they were close since they got back to the present. 

They unfolded the piece of paper, _ Engorgio_ed it and found out Boo-boo had written a letter to them.

_ Dear dads, _

_ I have to apologise to you. Everything starts back to the first time we met. I was so happy that I wasn’t alone anymore and I acted selfish, wishing you’d stay with me forever. I didn’t know what I was doing at the beginning, but I soon figured it out: the Time Machine was answering my wishes. I lived in it for so long that it became my haunted place and it started reacting to me. _

_ I should have told you as soon as I understood. Instead, I saw you falling in love with each other, happy most of the time and I didn’t realise how much pain I was causing you. Over the years, my memory came back and I was scared of remaining alone. _

_ Nothing excuses my actions, but I want to tell you the whole story. My name is Theodore Sprut. Yes, Sprut as in Geremia Sprut. The mad Unspeakable you really didn’t like, he’s my father. My father who built the Time Machine after my mother’s death, to go back in time and save her life. It went just like that. He told me it was my fault that my mother had died and sent me back in time to find her. _

_ I failed, and died on my mission. But I couldn’t. I needed to bring back my mother, to make my dad happy again and so my death didn’t finish and here I am, stuck in ghost form. I was ten years old, egotistical, selfish and childish when it happened, but I lived many years before you came across me. _

_ I knew what I was doing and I have no excuses. You kept fighting because of me and I couldn’t stand it anymore. You deserve happiness, you deserve to hug each other and love each other, because your love is the purest and I can’t keep ruining it for you. _

_ I’ll finally complete my mission and will reunite with my mother. _

_ Be happy. _

_ Yours, _

_ Boo-boo. _

Harry slowly raised his eyes to Geremia, pure rage thundering in his chest. Draco grabbed his arm, murmured to him to stay calm.

“What? What is it?” Hermione asked, looking at the three of them with a confused face.

“Call the Aurors, Hermione.” Draco talked for Harry, probably fearing he’d hurt Geremia without a second thought. Hermione looked once more toward them and then sent an emergency Patronus to the Aurors, Harry pointed his wand at Geremia.

“You knew,” he hissed. “You knew who Boo-boo was.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Draco blowing Boo-boo’s letter to Hermione, who quickly read it, gasping, her eyes watering. 

“You never told me, Geremia! We worked on this for so many years! What did you do?!” She sounded desperate and Harry realised only that moment what that could mean for Hermione. He ran to her, catching her between his arms before she could fall to the floor, Draco now pointing his wand at Geremia.

Geremia was still smiling devilishly, his eyes glinting maliciously. “You fools! This is the best invention I’ve ever made in my entire life, I couldn’t let my son ruin that! The fact he never came back… it meant nothing! I knew it could work and it did with you two. I’ll bring Rose back, and everything will be fine, Theodore will be back too and—”

A _ Stupefy _ reached Geremia before he could drag on his madness. Draco had aimed perfectly at his stomach, causing Geremia to stumble backwards and fall to the ground. “Bastard,” he hissed, as the Aurors arrived and proceeded to check the situation and take Geremia back to the Ministry to interrogate him and evaluate his condition. 

They classified the _ Stupefy _ as self-defence and eventually imprisoned Geremia on the charges of wrongful death. A small funeral was organised for Theodore by Harry and Draco, and Hermione had been transferred out of the _ Time Room _and moved onto a different project. 

It took some months to recover from everything, but in the end, they rebuilt their lives together. Harry opened a flower shop, helped by Neville’s expertise and Draco continued his work as a Curse-Breaker. 

They built new traditions together and Wednesday mornings were one of them. They would always meet in the pub next to the hotel where Jacob brought Harry that nefarious night and would have breakfast together. 

“A hot tea with two teaspoons—”

“Of cold milk and one of sugar,” the waitress concluded for Harry, a big grin plastered on her face. “I know it now, too!” She walked away, leaving a shocked Harry behind.

“Can you believe it?” He asked to Draco, gesturing annoyed.

Draco snorted, shaking his head. “Love, we’ve come here for the last several weeks. Yes, I can believe it.” 

They looked at each other, beaming like two teenagers in love. Harry reached out to take Draco’s hands on the table in his and murmured, “So, to another twenty years together?” 

Draco squeezed Harry’s hands and whispered back, “To an entire lifetime together.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please support the author by clicking on the kudos button and leaving a comment below! ♥ You can find me here on Tumblr [@drarryruinedme7](https://drarryruinedme7.tumblr.com/)! 
> 
> **Disclaimer**: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.


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